THE  M 


I0M3 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 


THE 

MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

A  BOOK  ON  THE  HUMAN 
SIDE  OF  MUSIC 

BY 

ROBERT  HAVEN  SCHAUFFLER 

Author  of  "  Where  Speech  Ends," 
"Romantic  Germany,"  etc. 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN   COMPANY 

<$bt  Rtoettfibe  jDre^  Cambti&ge 
1911 


COPYRIGHT,    I9II,    BY   ROBERT   HAVEN   SCHAUFFLER 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  October  iqn 


TO  MY  BROTHER 
CHARLES 

FIDDLER,  CREATIVE  LISTENER,  AUTOMUSICIAN, 

IN  GRATITUDE  FOR  HIS  TIRELESS  INSTRUCTION 

IN  THE  ART  OF  THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

AND  IN  MEMORY  OF  RARE  DAYS 

AND  NIGHTS  WITH  OPUS 

FIFTY-NINE 


PREFACE 

The  following  pages  are  addressed  to  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  musical  amateurs,  —  the 
interested  listeners,  the  disinterested  players 
and  singers,  all  who  love  and  make  music 
merely  for  its  own  sake,  and  who  would 
gladly  share  with  others  the  rich  increment 
of  emotion,  sensation,  and  thought  which 
this  art  brings  to  life.  They  are  the  great 
democracy  of  music,  —  in  a  sense  also  its 
aristocracy,  living  apart  from  its  commercial 
and  professional  side.  It  does  not  earn  their 
daily  bread,  but  helps  them  to  enjoy  it.  The 
relation  of  the  amateur  to  music  is  rather  like 
that  of  the  "gentle  reader  "  and  the  "delight- 
ful letter-writer  "  to  literature.  Without  such 
comprehending  friends  and  lovers,  without 
such  free  disciples  and  followers  (paid  only 
by  the  pleasure  of  their  service),  not  one  of 
the  arts  —  and  least  of  all,  music  —  could 
[vii] 


PREFACE 

really   enter   into    the    larger   life   of    the 
world. 

This  book  champions  the  cause  of  musical 
enthusiasm.  It  holds  that  aroused  and  sus- 
tained enthusiasm  is  the  best  of  all  incentives 
for  toil  toward  the  goal  of  skill  and  of  appre- 
ciation. It  urges  upon  parents  and  teachers  the 
need  for  their  sympathetic  recognition  of  the 
law  of  musical  evolution  at  every  successive 
stage  of  the  learner's  development.  It  shows 
how  music  in  the  home  may  be  made  a  centre 
of  inspiration  and  delight  and  social  cohesion 
not  alone  for  the  family  circle  but  also  for 
the  entire  community.  It  holds  that  the  true 
listener  plays  almost  as  real  and  vital  a  part 
in  the  making  of  music  as  the  composer  or 
the  performer;  that  the  false  listener,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  an  active  agent  of  destruction ; 
and  it  points  out  the  way  by  which  every  one 
may  become  a  "  creative "  listener  and  an  in- 
fectious source  of  "  creative  "  listening.  The 
informal,  intimate  assimilation  of  musical  cul- 
ture as  an  organic  part  of  every  amateur's  life 
[  viii  ] 


PREFACE 

is  proposed  through  the  cultivation  of  mem- 
ory, sight-reading,  musical  diaries,  whistling, 
and  the  like,  and  a  chapter  is  devoted  to  the 
dawning  science  of  musical  therapeutics. 

In  short,  this  is  a  familiar  book  upon  the 
strangely  neglected  human  side  of  music, 
especially  as  it  concerns  the  lot  of  the  amateur 
with  its  mingled  pain  and  pleasure,  plod  and 
play;  and  as  this  lot  contrasts  with  that  of 
his  less  fortunate  brother,  the  professional, 
and  of  "  the  man  that  hath  no  music  in  him- 
self." 

One  of  the  writer's  aims  has  been  to  draw 
up  such  a  document  as  a  "  creative  "  music- 
lover  might  hopefully  give  to  his  scoffing, 
philistine  friend  in  justification  of  the  faith 
that  is  in  him.  Should  a  single  philistine 
thus  be  led  to  give  ear  to  "  the  universal 
language,"  or  a  single  amateur  to  become  a 
better  amateur,  the  writer  would  feel  himself 
less  unworthy  to  have  been  the  friend  of 
Walthers,  that  apostle  of  true  amateurdom 
whose  unique  venture  is  here  recorded. 
[«] 


PREFACE 

Thanks  are  due  to  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
for  permission  to  reprint  chapters  n,  in,  iv, 
v,  vi,  vii,  and  xiv,  and  to  the  Outlook  for 
chapters  i,  ix,  x,  and  xi. 

R.  H.  S. 


CONTENTS 

I.  The  Evolution  of  a  Musical  Amateur   .  1 

II.  Fiddler's  Lure 30 

III.  The  Creative  Listener       ....  56 

IV.  The  Destructive  Listener      ...  80 
V.  The  Ear  Club 90 

VI.  Musical  Indigestion         ....      104 
VII.  The  Amateur  Automusician  :  a  Plea  for 

the  Musical  Memory  .        .        .        .114 
VIII.   The  Musical  Temperament  and  its  Draw- 
backs        140 

IX.  What  the  Amateur  Escapes      .        .        .  164 

X.  The  Musician's  Parasite         .        .        .      186 

XL   The  Musical  Pharmacy      ....  199 

XII.  The  Wearing  Qualities  of  Music         .      219 

XIII.  My  Rod  and  my  Staff         .        .        .        .232 

XIV.  A  Defense  of  Amateur  Whistling       .      253 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 
I 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  A  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

People  are  not  born  with  a  taste  for  good 
music.  Neither  do  they  achieve  it  suddenly, 
nor  have  it  thrust  upon  them; — that  is,  un- 
less they  happen  to  be  descended  from  the 
sort  of  pristine  ancestor  who,  on  some  New 
Year's  morning  very  long  ago,  suddenly  ab- 
jured swinging  from  bough  to  bough,  and 
arrayed  himself  in  a  stand-up  collar,  and  de- 
cided to  send  his  daughter  to  the  university. 
No.  The  well-rounded  musical  amateur  is 
the  product  of  a  long  evolution.  Just  as  — 
in  Haeckel's  view  —  each  adult  of  us  has  il- 
lustrated in  the  course  of  his  growth  every 
successive  period  in  the  evolution  of  the  race, 
so  the  lover  of  good  music  has  developed  his 
love  only  by  passing  through  every  successive 
[1  ] 


THE   MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

stage  of  musical  enthusiasm  from  supreme 
delight  in  the  rattle  solo  to  supreme  delight 
in,  say,  the  Choral  Symphony.  Grown-ups 
who  have  never  reached  the  latter  stage  are 
simply  examples  of  arrested  musical  develop- 
ment. 

Thus  the  story  of  an  amateur's  evolution 
ought  to  exhibit  in  miniature — as  a  dewdrop 
mirrors  the  universe  — the  whole  history  of 
the  art  of  music,  from  its  birth  in  the  first 
rhythmic  stampings  or  inarticulate  cries  of 
joy  or  terror,  growing  gradually  less  barbaric 
and  blatant  and  grossly  material  and  more 
subtly  surcharged  with  soul  as  it  drew  closer 
to  the  era  of  Bach  and  Beethoven  and 
Brahms. 

It  is  of  course  undeniable  that  now  and  then 
some  one  who  has  shown  unusual  discrimina- 
tion in  his  choice  of  a  grandfather  is  preco- 
cious enough  to  scramble  hurriedly  through 
all  these  early  stages  soon  after  first  seeing 
the  light  of  day.  Such  was  Mendelssohn,  who 
developed  into  a  finished  musical  cartoonist 
[2] 


EVOLUTION  OF  A  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

before  his  feet  had  reached  the  pedals.  Such 
is  Edwin  Grasse,  the  young  man  with  the 
phonographic  musical  memory,  who,  when  a 
blind  baby  of  little  more  than  three,  was  over- 
heard singing  Wagner's  Dreams  in  perfect 
tune  while  sound  asleep,  and  who  at  five,  after 
hearing  his  first  Beethoven  symphony,  went 
home  and  played  long  passages  from  it  on 
the  piano,  connecting  these  with  improvisa- 
tions that  sounded  like  "perfectly  good 
Beethoven  "  to  a  well-known  conductor  who 
was  in  the  room.  Such  natures  as  these,  how- 
ever, are  musically  far  too  bright  and  good 
"for  human  nature's  daily  food."  They  are 
the  exceptions  that  prove  the  rule.  They  are 
the  handful  of  long,  keen  nails  that  fasten  it 
down  securely  to  the  common  level. 

My  own  musical  development  began  quite 
normally  by  symbolizing  the  dawn  of  the  art. 
I  propose  to  outline  its  history  for  three  rea- 
sons :  (1)  Because  it  typifies  the  evolution  of 
a  very  ordinary  sort  of  amateur ;  (2)  because 
I  happen  to  know  more  about  this  particular 
[3  ] 


THE   MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

case  than  about  any  other ;  and  (3)  because 
there  in  an  intensely  practical  conclusion  to 
be  drawn.  In  view  of  which  the  reader  is 
begged  to  pardon  the  necessary  first-person- 
ality of  the  narration. 

Doubtless  the  rubber  rattle  was  my  earli- 
est love  in  the  instrumental  line;  but  the 
first  that  I  can  definitely  recall  was  a  small 
snare  drum,  followed  by  the  bones,  or  "  clap- 
pers,"—  two  of  the  most  ancient  instruments 
known  to  man.  It  is  interesting  to  observe 
how  often  the  appetite  for  music  seems  re- 
stricted to  that  sort  best  suited  to  the  limit- 
ations of  the  instrument  one  happens  to  play, 
— especially  if  the  instrument  itself  be  very 
limited  in  scope.  Think  of  the  range  of  Bot- 
tom's taste,  for  instance.  "  I  have  a  reasonable 
good  ear  in  music,"  quoth  he;  "  let 's  have  the 
tongs  and  the  bones." 

Thus,  in  those  days,  I  scorned  all  music 

that  was  devoid  of  a  rhythm  so  marked  and 

elemental    as  to  be  distinctly  drum-able  or 

clap-able.    And  when   the  family  orchestra 

[4] 


EVOLUTION  OF  A   MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

forgathered  about  the  old  square  piano, 
armed  with  an  amazing  variety  of  musical 
appliances,  ranging  from  an  Amati  violin 
downward  through  assorted  instruments  of 
defense,  of  offense,  and  of  torture,  my  red- 
letter  moment  arrived  only  with  the  perform- 
ance of  The  Jolly  Brothers'  Galop. 

Promotion  to  the  tissued  comb  and  its 
apotheosis,  the  kazoo,  brought  with  it  a 
slightly  more  lyric  taste.  But,  as  these  were 
rather  more  playthings  than  instruments,  I 
still  reveled  exclusively  in  the  sphere  of  toy 
music. 

Nor  did  the  advent  of  the  jew's-harp,  or 
"chin-chopper,"  much  expand  the  horizon. 
About  this  time  I  first  encountered  a  theatre 
orchestra  (at  a  horse-show,  for  drama  was 
under  the  ban),  and  nearly  expired  with  de- 
light, —  not  when  they  did  the  William  Tell 
Overture,  which  was  as  so  much  Greek  dia- 
lect to  me,  but  in  the  course  of  their  second 
number,  a  "  characteristic  piece  "  entitled  A 
Day  in  the  Farmyard.  The  leading  spirit 
[5  ] 


THE   MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

in  this  piece  was  the  astonishingly  versatile 
man  behind  the  drums.  I  was  convulsed  with 
what  seemed  to  me  the  exquisitely  subtle  hu- 
mor of  the  triangle,  the  xylophone,  the  blocks 
of  sand-papered  wood.  To  the  scandal  of  the 
neighboring  spectators  I  crowed  in  loud  rap- 
ture at  the  cuckoo,  the  castanets,  the  cymbals, 
bells,  and  big  bass  drum  that  came  in  when 
you  least  expected  them.  For  all  of  me  the 
art  of  music  was  as  yet  some  aeons  from  hav- 
ing reached  the  stage  where  Apollo  stumbled 
over  the  old  tortoise-shell  with  the  strand  of 
dried  skin  stretched  across  it,  —  and  was 
moved  to  invent  the  lyre. 

Some  time  thereafter  I  attained  to  the 
mouth-organ,  which  obviously  led  to  its  larger, 
wheezier  relative,  the  accordion.  This  re- 
splendent vision  of  nickel  trimmings  and  red- 
leather  bellows  it  was  that  weaned  me  from 
the  role  of  mere  supernumerary  to  be  at  length 
an  integral  part  of  the  family  orchestra. 

With  wonder  and  joy  I  still  look  back  to 
that  remarkable  amateur  organization.  As  the 
[6]    ' 


EVOLUTION  OF  A  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

groups  of  men  and  beasts  in  the  popular 
scientific  books  used  to  portray  the  descent  of 
man,  so  our  orchestra  represented  nearly  all 
stages  of  musical  evolution  ;  and  these  were 
graduated  pretty  well  according  to  age.  If 
each  member  had  suited  his  own  taste  in  the 
choice  of  pieces,  some  remarkable  counter- 
point would  have  ensued.  We  would  doubt- 
less have  sounded  more  like  one  prolonged 
spasm  of  tuning-up  than  we  did,  or  like  the 
several  family  orchestras  which  once  occupied 
adjacent  apartments  in  the  Tower  of  Babel 
and  were  in  the  habit  of  striking  up  every 
evening  at  eight. 

But  as  it  was,  in  our  home  the  more  ad- 
vanced musicians  were  so  wise  and  kind  as  to 
make  enormous  concessions  to  us  small  fry 
in  the  matter  of  taste.  They  were  generous 
enough  to  mind  not  high  things,  but  to  con- 
descend to  The  Jolly  Brothers'  Galop  and 
its  ilk  a  good  part  of  the  time.  If  they 
had  not,  we  tail-en ders  would  most  likely  have 
hated  all  classical  music  forthwith,  and  might 
[  7  ] 


THE   MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

have  kept  up  this  hatred  indefinitely.  As  it 
was,  however,  when  the  orchestral  hour  was 
done  and  the  elders  would  begin  on  Bach 
duets  and  Beethoven  trios,  and  other  things 
out  of  certain  big  blue  books,  we  youngsters 
would  often  hang  around  watching  the  flying 
fingers  as  curiously  as  we  might  have  watched 
a  school  of  flying-fish ;  or  at  the  worst,  with 
a  sort  of  mild,  passive  wonder  as  to  what 
they  found  in  that  dull  stuff  anyway.  And 
all  the  while,  without  our  suspecting  it  in  the 
least,  those  flying  fingers  were  scattering 
"the  dull  stuff,"  like  so  many  ugly  little 
seeds,  into  our  hearts,  to  rest  there  quietly 
until  our  springtide  should  come. 

Presently  a  desire  for  the  more  human  sort 
of  wind  instrument  overcame  me.  In  an  im- 
pulsive moment  I  punctured  the  base  bellows 
of  the  accordion  (the  thing  had  never  been 
in  tune  with  the  piano  anyhow.  My  much- 
enduring  family  are  all  worthy  of  canoniza- 
tion !),  and  embraced  what  dictionaries  call 
the  ocarina,  and  the  vulgar  call  the  sweet 
[8] 


EVOLUTION  OF  A  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

potato.  This  was  rather  too  mild  an  enter- 
tainer. It  roared  me  more  gently  than  any 
sucking  dove. 

Therefore  it  was  displaced  by  the  penny 
whistle  —  that  instrument  best-beloved  of 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  (a  person  I  had  never 
heard  of  in  those  days.  That,  by  the  bye,  as 
I  look  back,  seems  well-nigh  the  most  allur- 
ing thing  about  extreme  youth  —  that  it  has 
still  before  it  a  first  hidden-treasure-digging 
expedition  into  the  prose  works  of  R.  L.  S.). 

Owing  to  a  mild  attack  of  the  war  fever, 
this  divine  handmaiden  of  the  art  was  ex- 
changed for  a  most  mundane  boxwood  fife 
with  leaden  mouthpiece  attached.  From  this 
my  affection  soon  strayed,  though  keeping 
consistently  within  the  instrumental  family, 
to  the  German  flute,  which  lapped  me  in  soft 
Lydian  airs. 

But  not  for  long.  In  taking  up  the  flute  I 
now  perceive  that  I  was  trying  to  speed  up 
the  deliberate  march  of  evolution  to  an  un- 
natural gait.  Reaction  was  hastened  by  re- 
[9] 


THE   MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

ceiving  on  this  instrument  my  first  formal 
music-lessons,  —  abominable  things  that  were 
solely  intended,  as  it  seemed  to  my  juvenile 
understanding,  to  qualify  me  with  dismaying 
speed  for  the  position  of  one  who  would 
have  no  grounds  for  declining  to  stand  and 
deliver  "the  dull  stuff"  to  all  perfunctory 
visitors  on  demand. 

A  yet  more  cogent  ground  for  my  devolu- 
tion to  the  brazen  trump  was  that  the  mili- 
tary fever  had  seized  me  again,  this  time  with 
no  gentle  clutch.  And  I  found  the  uncertain 
shrillings  of  the  pipe  family  far  less  of  a  re- 
lief for  my  robust  emotions  than  the  con- 
vincing brays  of  the  bugle.  From  the  bugle 
there  remained  but  one  short  and  obvious 
step  to  the  cornet.  This  was  the  point  where 
genuine  and  enthusiastic  study  began  for  me. 
I  devoted  myself  with  hearty  zeal  to  scales 
and  broken  chords,  and  the  painful  process 
of  developing  "  a  lip,"  because  these  things 
held  the  promise,  not  of  performing  "  the 
dull  stuff,"  which  is  foreign  to  the  cornet 
[10] 


EVOLUTION  OF  A  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

nature,  but  of  being  able,  rather,  to  drown 
out  the  balance  of  the  family  in  deluges  of 
detonation.  I  had  in  mind  that  portion  of 
Scripture  which  promises  that  the  trumpet 
shall  sound  and  the  dead  shall  be  raised.  For, 
at  my  then  stage  of  evolution,  might  spelled 
right;  and  in  the  bright  rhyming  lexicon 
of  my  youth  the  sole  companion  word  for 
"joys"  was  "noise."  When  the  long-suffer- 
ing family  finally  drew  the  line,  I  organized 
an  orchestra  in  school,  whose  crowning  ideal 
of  grandeur  was  a  Sousa  march  commencing 
fortissimo,  with  each  measure  handing  on 
the  dynamic  torch  undimmed  —  and  brighter 
if  possible  —  to  its  successor. 

About  this  time  a  secondary  passion  for 
technic  for  technic's  sake  sprang  up  within 
me  as  well ;  and  this  two-fold  desire  for  noise 
and  agility  was  gratified  at  school  by  playing 
such  compositions  as  the  Bon  Ton  Overture 
at  increasing  volumes  and  speeds. 

One  day  the  astonishing  truth  revealed  it- 
self that  the  more  tender  phases  of  human 
[11] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

feeling  are  capable  of  musical  expression. 
Accordingly,  with  the  headlong  exaggeration 
proper  to  my  years,  I  entered  the  sentimental 
stage.  Noise  and  the  gymnastic  art  dropped 
some  distance  below  their  former  proud  emi- 
nence. The  lush  in  music  queened  it  supreme. 
At  the  music  store  I  found  various  soulful 
things  for  amateur  orchestras,  like  Hearts 
and  Flowers,  and  a  composition  called  Gon- 
dolier and  Nightingale,  in  which  the  gondo- 
lier, while  "  gondling  "  presumably  with  one 
hand,  plays  with  the  other  a  cornet  solo  to 
one  of  the  nightingales  which  are  well  known 
to  abound  on  Venetian  waters,  —  a  solo,  each 
quivering  measure  of  which  is  like  one  of 
those  valentines  made  up  to  look  like  trans- 
fixed and  bleeding  hearts.  Then  the  nightin- 
gale twitters  reciprocations  through  a  piccolo. 
Whereupon  the  two  melt  into  each  other's 
song,  he  intoning  the  musical  equivalent  of 
"  I  lo-o-o-o-o-o-ve  but  the-e-e-e-e-ee  !  "  while 
she  broiders  the  valentine  with  a  paper  lace 
fringe  of  rapid,  airy  "  Lu-but-thee"s,  trail- 
[12  ] 


EVOLUTION  OF  A  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

ing  off  into  inarticulate  trill-tassels.  This, 
at  any  rate,  is  how  that  beloved  composition 
impresses  me  as  I  gaze  back  upon  it  through 
the  uncertain  medium  of  the  years. 

Soon  I  perceived  faint,  internal  prompt- 
ings toward  even  higher  things.  Some  of 
the  older  brethren  had  recently  come  home 
on  a  college  vacation  and  played  a  large 
amount  of  "  the  dull  stuff,"  which  had  had 
its  subtle  effect,  though  I  could  not  as  yet 
understand  or  enjoy  it  appreciably.  So, 
without  abandoning  the  cornet,  I  was  led  to 
unearth  the  old  flute,  as  being  perhaps  bet- 
ter adapted  for  conveying  the  more  delicate 
shades  of  emotion.  Forthwith  I  began  lead- 
ing a  dual  musical  life,  dividing  my  alle- 
giance between  the  soft  Lydian  airs  of  the 
wood,  and  the  harsher  but  more  stirring 
Dorian  of  the  brass.  At  this  time  my  taste 
in  overtures  leaped  from  The  Caliph  of 
Bagdad,  which  had  long  ousted  the  Bon 
Ton,  to  the  William  Tell,  especially  the 
place  where  all  the  instruments  do  a  charge 
[13] 


THE   MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

of  the  Light  Brigade.  I  used  to  spend  petri- 
fied hours  and  all  my  available  nickels  hear- 
ing Hooligan's  Brass  Band  of  New  York, 
London,  and  Paris  perform  this  charge  in  the 
"  phonograph  parlor  "  downtown. 

One  day  it  occurred  to  me  to  get  out  the 
big  blue  books  that  the  others  were  always 
so  absorbed  in  on  their  vacations,  and  see  if, 
after  all,  there  was  really  anything  in  them. 
I  screwed  the  old  flute  carefully  together, 
lubricating  the  joints  and  squinting  down 
the  line  of  keys  just  as  father  always  did.  I 
propped  a  blue  book  on  the  square  piano, 
climbed  upon  the  stool,  opened  at  random, 
and  began  to  play.  Almost  at  once,  without 
any  warning,  one  of  the  supreme  moments 
of  my  life  was  upon  me.  As  I  look  back  it 
seems  comparable  alone  to  that  other  mo- 
ment, a  few  years  later,  when  a  curious 
chemical  change  seemed  to  take  place  within, 
when  something  fizzed,  gurgled,  and  evapo- 
rated all  at  once  in  my  brain,  and  I  began 
actually  to  enjoy  the  Milton  and  Burke 
[14] 


EVOLUTION   OF  A   MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

which  I  had  so  laboriously  come  to  loathe  at 
school. 

I  had  opened  the  blue  volume  by  chance 
to  Beethoven's  Adelaide,  and  before  a  dozen 
bars  were  done,  some  mental  door  flew  sud- 
denly open  and  let  in  with  a  rush  a  crowd 
of  memories.  They  recalled  to  me  how  the 
others  had  played  this  thing  on  immemorial 
Christmas  vacations  and  how  lovely  it  had 
sounded,  only  I  —  pig  that  I  was  —  had 
never  realized  it.  Page  after  page  of  that 
marvelous  book,  as  each  was  eagerly  snatched 
over,  I  found  transfigured  thus  in  the  light 
of  my  sudden  maturity  ;  —  it  appeared  sud- 
den to  me  then ;  I  see  now  that  it  had  been 
gradually  attained,  step  after  halting  step, 
slow  recovery  after  swift  backslide,  through 
the  years.  It  was,  indeed,  a  rare  hour.  Com- 
pared to  mine  the  joys  of  Cortez  and  Colum- 
bus seemed  but  as  mild  drops  of  gratifica- 
tion in  a  huge  bucket  of  rapture.  If  my  cup 
of  joy  had  been  as  capacious  as  the  tankard 
out  of  which  the  famous  old  burgomaster 
[15  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

of  Rothenburg  performed  his  "master- 
drink,"  it  would  still  have  overflowed  upon 
the  library  carpet. 

When  my  breath  was  all  spent,  I  fell 
rather  than  climbed  from  the  stool,  burst 
into  my  father's  study  without  the  pre- 
scribed formula  of  knocks,  and  rushed  into 
his  arms,  gasping,  "  I  like  the  dull  stuff !  At 
last,  I  like  the  dull  stuff ! "  "  Thought  it  was 
about  time,"  he  murmured. 

During  the  following  weeks  the  blue 
books  absorbed  me  utterly.  Not  a  single  one 
of  those  fragments  of  Mozart  and  Mendels- 
sohn, Gluck  and  Schubert,  and  the  others, 
but  seemed  now  as  though  it  had  always 
been  more  or  less  familiar,  as  though  I  had 
even  heard  the  mariners  chanting  it  long 
ago  on  "  that  immortal  sea  which  brought  us 
hither."  For  all  during  the  barbaric  years 
of  bones  and  whistles  and  horns  I  had  un- 
consciously been  preparing  to  adore  these 
bewigged  masters  of  Tone.  And  now,  in  the 
fullness  of  time,  I  found  them  so  enthralling 
[16] 


EVOLUTION  OF  A  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

that  the  family  were  fain  to  administer  my 
meals  in  liquid  form,  introducing  them 
through  the  cylinder  that  so  seldom  left  my 
lips. 

Musically  speaking,  I  had  entered  the  in- 
tense age, — that  crude  period  of  violent 
personal  crushes  that  plays  such  an  essen- 
tial part  in  man's  emotional  development. 
Among  the  melodious  heroes  Carl  Maria  von 
Weber  was  my  earliest  passion.  His  com- 
plete overtures  I  obtained  for  flute  and  piano 
(horribile  dictu  /),  and  grew  to  regard  even 
the  one  to  Peter  Schmoll  as  a  masterpiece. 
A  consumptive-looking  chromo  of  my  adored 
hung  behind  the  bar  of  a  German  saloon  on 
the  way  to  school.  By  dint  of  neck-craning 
I  could  just  make  out  the  lugubrious  fea- 
tures through  the  window.  And  twice  a  day 
I  would  crane  devotedly,  make  a  secret  bow, 
and  silently  utter  a  little  heartfelt  formula 
which  I  now  perceive  to  have  been  almost  as 
genuine  idolatry  as  anything  that  ever  went 
on  upon  India's  coral  strand.  And  when- 
[  17  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

ever  I  attempted  the  variations  on  "God 
Save  the  King  "  which  end  the  Jubilee  Over- 
ture, this  emotion  was  curiously  blent  with 
an  exalted  patriotism. 

Fired  by  Rau's  sentimental  romance,  I 
transferred  my  hero-worship  to  Mozart, 
though  by  no  means  up  to  appreciating  him 
at  his  best.  His  precocity  shamed  my  back- 
wardness, and  I  almost  sprained  a  lip  through 
redoubled  practicing. 

Berlioz  came  next.  Though  I  had  never 
heard  a  note  of  his,  he  captured  me  by  the 
magnificent  self -appreciation  of  the  Auto- 
biography. After  reading  that,  I  was  able  to 
imagine  more  overpowering  strains  from  the 
pen  of  this  hero  than  ever  sounded  on  land 
or  sea,  and  went  about  all  day  with  his  bulky 
book  on  instrumentation  under  one  arm  and 
a  score  of  his  Requiem,  Mass  under  the  other. 

A  severe  case  of  Mendelssohnitis  set  in 

after  reading  the  vibrant  pages  of  Charles 

Auchester.  But  I  now  was  caught  in  the  thrall 

c£  the  literature  about  my  art,  and  before 

[18]   " 


EVOLUTION  OF  A  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

long  had  finished  every  musical  book  in  the 
public  library.  I  reveled  in  the  saccharine 
sadness  that  pervades  the  streets  the  day  after 
the  ball  in  The  First  Violin,  much  as  previ- 
ous generations  had  reveled  in  the  sorrows 
of  Werther.  And  that  remarkable  tale  of 
Nephele,  by  the  amateur  of  music  and  poetry 
who  wrote  "The  night  has  a  thousand  eyes," 
possessed  the  power  to  entrance  me  almost  as 
deeply  as  the  two  improvising  lovers  were  en- 
tranced on  the  concert  stage  at  the  moment 
of  the  tragic  catastrophe. 

Amy  Fay  brought  the  settled  conviction 
that  life  would  not  be  worth  dragging  along 
into  middle  age  without  a  few  years  of  music 
study  in  Germany.  I  drank  in  every  syllable 
of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Haweis's  works,  with- 
out knowing  in  the  least  how  to  discriminate 
between  the  truth  and  the  all  too  frequent 
error,  —  between  the  sentiment  and  the  pale, 
sickly  sentimentality.  In  fact,  I  see  now  that 
at  that  period  the  latter  was  rather  the  more 
welcome. 

[19] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

Also  a  now  neglected  American  story, 
called  The  Dominant  Seventh,  was  all  in  all 
to  me.  I  used  to  lie  awake  half  the  night, 
tense  with  the  longing  to  make  one  of  such 
a  chamber-music  party  as  disported  itself  in 
those  enticing  pages.  Whether  the  pages 
were  well  written  or  ill,  I  have  never  known 
to  this  day.  As  far  as  my  adolescence  was 
concerned,  they  might  easily  have  been 
penned  by  one  of  the  immortal  nine  with  a 
quill  plucked  from  Pegasus.  Good  art  or  bad, 
they  were  of  incalculable  service  in  fixing  the 
glamour  of  fiddler's  lure  deep  in  my  young 
heart. 

Despite  much  reading  about  symphony 
orchestras,  however,  I  had  never  yet  seen 
one.  How  I  longed  to  !  Fevered  by  the  per- 
fervid  phrases  of  Berlioz,  I  would  almost 
have  signed  my  future  away  in  the  blood  of 
a  puny  forearm  to  taste  an  experience  to 
which,  two  or  three  evolutionary  stages  earlier, 
I  could  only  have  been  dragged  with  reluct- 
ance, and  could  have  sat  out  with  nothing 
[20] 


EVOLUTION   OF  A   MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

better  than  resignation.  But  one  hour  with 
the  big  blue  books  had  transfigured  the 
universe.  I  was  orchestra-mad,  and  used  to 
hang  around  the  music  shops  in  the  hope 
of  catching  sight  of  one  of  those  fabulous 
bassoons  or  French  horns  that  hovered  over 
my  pillow  every  night.  In  day  dreams  and 
half-day  dreams  I  used  to  speculate  on  what 
"  the  poignant,  acid  tone  of  the  oboe  "  was 
like,  or  how  the  kettledrums  sounded,  espe- 
cially when  thumped  with  the  sponge-headed 
sticks  so  earnestly  recommended  by  Berlioz. 
The  afternoon  of  pure,  radiant  gold  with- 
out a  single  atom  of  alloy,  when  I  played 
hookey  because  Theodore  Thomas  had  come 
to  town,  stands  forth  on  the  page  of  my 
youth  like  a  large  superbly  illuminated  capital 
letter  on  the  —  by  no  means  dull  —  expanse 
of  some  mediaeval  manuscript  of  adventure. 
The  blessed  John  on  the  Isle  of  Patmos  was 
no  more  sincerely  rapt  above  this  earth  than 
was  the  wide-eyed  little  shaver,  balanced  on 
the  extreme  edge  of  his  seat  in  the  balcony, 
[21] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

when  the  French  horns  (of  all  instruments !) 
opened  the  programme  —  and  Brahms's  Sec- 
ond Symphony  —  with  their  tender,  mellow, 
smiling  call,  or  when  the  oboe  acidly  piped 
forth  its  delicious  pastorale.  And  I  recognized 
these  people  of  my  dreams  just  as  if  it  had 
actually  been  my  lot  to  arrive  on  earth  trailing 
a  modest  cloudlet  from  among  the  clouds  of 
glory  that  form  a  stage  for  the  largest  orches- 
tra mentioned  in  literature.  As  for  Brahms, 
he  was  a  brand-new  experience,  yet  every  note 
was  a  joy.  For  nobody  had  already  taken  the 
trouble  to  explain  that  he  was  muddy,  abstruse, 
uninteresting,  and  extremely  hard  to  make 
head  or  tail  of. 

The  story  of  how  the  boyish  taste  went  on 
developing  after  this  experience,  and  how  it 
found  itself  a  more  musical  companion  and 
helper  in  the  'cello,  shall  be  deferred  to  the 
following  chapter. 

Here  I  would  merely  point  out  that  I,  for 
one,  was  never  taken  to  listen  to  a  large  or- 
chestra against  my  will,  and  never  heard  one 
[22] 


EVOLUTION  OF  A   MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

at  all  until  evolution  had  tuned  me  quite  up 
to  symphony  concert  pitch.  So  that,  when  it 
finally  came,  this  experience  had  the  quality 
of  a  vivid  revelation.  Children  should,  of 
course,  hear  the  best  music  from  early  youth 
up,  but  they  should  be  allowed  to  absorb  it 
casually,  unconsciously,  as  I  was  allowed  to 
absorb  "  the  dull  stuff."  There  is  to  me  some- 
thing positively  revolting  in  the  thought  of 
cramming  a  poem  by  Milton  or  a  symphony 
by  Beethoven  down  a  child's  throat  before 
he  is  in  the  least  ready  for  it.  The  chances 
are  that  he  will  for  years,  and  perhaps  for 
ever,  entertain  a  prejudice  against  that  par- 
ticular kind  of  diet. 

A  large  amount  of  needless  indifference  to 
good  music,  and  even  active  hatred  for  it,  is 
caused  by  putting  children  at  dry  piano  scales 
and  Czerny-with-the-metronome  before  ever 
they  have  developed  a  single  spark  of  enthu- 
siasm for  the  classic  beauty  to  which  the  excel- 
lent Czerny  is  such  an  obvious  and  supple 
finger-post.  To  do  this  is  to  teach  them  to  re- 
[23] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

gard  the  choicest  portions  of  musical  literature 
as  all  of  a  piece  with  the  literature  of  the  spell- 
ing-book. This  is  a  serious  mistake,  because 
it  threatens  to  dry  up  the  sources  of  their 
enthusiasm.  And  enthusiasm  is  the  very  life 
and  soul  of  the  musician.  Without  it,  though 
he  may  learn  to  run  Liszt  cadenzas  almost 
as  swiftly  and  precisely  as  any  mechanical 
piano,  he  will  never,  in  this  life,  develop  into 
a  good  player.  Enthusiasm,  in  the  last  analy- 
sis, is  the  only  thing  that  ever  made  a  real 
interpreter.  Without  it,  the  student  can  only 
become  at  best  a  fallible  human  automaton. 
To  speak  of  an  unenthusiastic  musician  is  to 
utter  a  contradiction  in  terms. 

As  Czerny,  therefore,  is  such  a  kill- joy,  a 
child's  enthusiasm  should  be  given  a  generous 
head-start  of  him  in  the  musical  race.  The 
education  of  young  ears  should  be  begun 
long  before  the  education  of  young  fingers. 
Then,  even  though  the  child  may  never  turn 
out  to  be  one  of  the  few  chosen  to  perform 
music,  he  will  probably  turn  out,  if  educable 
[24  ] 


EVOLUTION  OF  A  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

at  all,  to  be  one  of  that  even  smaller  and  more 
urgently-needed  class  —  the  noble  army  of 
creative  listeners. 

It  is  not  music,  as  Horace  intimated,  but 
rather  the  enthusiasm  for  music,  that  is  the 
Idborum  dulce  lenimen,  the  sweet  solace  of 
toil.  This  alone  can  make  the  dry,  ugly  scales 
and  etudes  seem  but  the  rough  cobblestones 
leading  to  the  enchanted  castle.  By  begin- 
ning with  the  child's  fingers  the  teacher  puts 
his  musical  future  "  to  the  touch,  to  gain  or 
lose  it  all."  By  beginning  with  his  ears 
it  is  hardly  possible  for  him  to  "lose  it 
all."  A  great  deal  of  nonsense  is  talked 
nowadays  about  the  necessity  for  taking 
the  fingers  when  they  are  young  and  sup- 
ple. I  believe  that,  generally  speaking,  they 
are  quite  as  young  and  supple  as  is  ne- 
cessary at  fourteen  or  fifteen ;  and  that  a 
single  hour  of  practice,  reinforced  by  the 
enthusiasm  of  one  who  has  his  eyes  fixed  on 
the  lure  of  the  enchanted  castle,  —  the  lure 
of  chamber-music  parties  and  amateur  sym- 
[25] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

phony  orchestras,  —  is  worth  fifty  hours  of 
forced  and  grudging  grind.  The  teacher  who 
begins  at  the  wrong  end  and  attempts  to  has- 
ten matters  by  resolutely  driving  a  child  out 
of  the  jew's-harp  stage  as  if  he  were  a  tres- 
passer there,  straight  into  the  Beethoven 
sonata  stage,  stands  to  spoil  his  victim's 
chances  of  being  either  a  passable  listener 
or  player  for  good  and  all. 

This  does  not  mean,  of  course,  that  nobody 
should  be  suffered  to  study  an  instrument  be- 
fore he  has  arrived  at  the  sonata  stage  of 
appreciation.  It  means  only  that  children 
should  never  be  set  at  music  as  they  are  set 
at  a  stint  of  weeding  in  the  garden.  Only  get 
them  mad  enough  over  the  lure  of  the  thing 
and  convince  them  that  there  is  no  royal  road 
to  the  enchanted  castle,  and  wild  horses  can- 
not prevent  them  from  wearing  down  the 
cobble-stones  that  lead  thither.  Would  the 
old  master  one  reads  about  have  made  such 
an  excellent  spinet  player  if  he  had  had  his 
infant  nose  held  down  to  the  instrument  for 
[26] 


EVOLUTION  OF  A  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

ten  hours  a  day  instead  of  having  been  for- 
bidden on  any  account  to  touch  the  thing 
until  he  was  much  older,  and  having  had  to 
practice  it  up  in  the  attic  in  fear  and  trem- 
bling with  one  eye  on  the  door  ? 

In  my  opinion  the  parent  with  musical  am- 
bitions for  his  offspring  should  be  evolution- 
ist enough  to  recognize  and  respect  the  child's 
successive  stages  of  development,  and  should 
perhaps  even  supply  him  with  instruments  of 
more  or  less  humility  suited  to  the  various 
stages,  so  that  he  may  exhaust  the  enthusi- 
asm proper  to  each  period  as  fully  and  rapidly 
as  possible.  Above  all,  the  child  should  not 
be  forced.  For  if  he  should,  for  any  reason, 
skip  even  one  stage,  he  might  go  back  later 
and  make  up  the  lapse  at  considerable  loss 
of  headway,  much  as  I  went  back  for  a  time 
from  the  flute  to  blat  upon  the  strident  cor- 
net. Papa  Haydn  had  the  right  idea.  He 
concocted  a  Kinder  Symphony  which  the 
children  could  perform  together  upon  the 
musical  playthings  proper  to  their  various 
[27  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

stages  of  evolution,  and  thus  derive  the  maxi- 
mum of  profit  from  each  stage.  He  also  took 
care  not  to  make  the  symphony  so  beautiful  as 
to  stimulate  a  false  satisfaction  with  toy  music. 

Theodore  Thomas  was  blessed  with  the  in- 
sight to  see  that  the  adult  children,  as  well, 
who  composed  his  audiences  must  be  grad- 
ually educated.  And  so  he  besprinkled  the 
symphony  programmes  of  his  early  concerts 
with  plentiful  Spring  Songs  and  intermezzi 
from  Cavalleria  and  Beautiful  Blue  Danubes. 
And  when  he  had  made  the  people  happy 
with  something  like  this  and  had  diverted 
their  minds  from  the  conscious  and  painful 
pursuit  of  musical  culture,  he  would  slip  in 
one  of  the  things  that  were  not  written  for 
an  age  but  for  all  time.  This  would  produce 
on  them  no  obvious  impression  whatever, 
either  positive  or  negative.  But  some  fine 
day,  years  later,  they  would  wake  up  to  find 
that  the  thing  was  their  very  own. 

So,  too,  should  the  little  ones  be  educated. 
Into  their  preoccupied,  unsuspecting  systems 
[28] 


EVOLUTION  OF  A   MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

should  be  introduced  from  time  to  time  in 
capsule  form  a  wide  selection  from  the  class- 
ics. The  children  should  be  given  to  under- 
stand that  they  are  not  expected  to  appreci- 
ate these  things  now,  but  that  some  fine  day, 
when  they  are  quite  ready  for  the  change, 
the  crude  and  violent  pleasures  they  now  en- 
joy in  A  Day  in  the  Farmyard  will  be  suc- 
ceeded by  a  deeper,  though  more  delicate 
and  subtle  sort  of  pleasure,  —  a  far  more  allur- 
ing, compelling,  lasting  kind  than  anything 
they  have  ever  known ;  and  that  this  fine  day 
will  most  likely  break  upon  them  without 
warning  and  bowl  them  over  somewhat  as  a 
great  light  once  bowled  over  a  little  tent- 
maker  on  the  road  to  Damascus. 

Having  now  traced  the  development  of  a 
youthful  amateur's  passion  for  music,  let  us 
consider  more  fully  this  question  of  musical 
enthusiasm :  its  pleasures,  its  pains,  and  other 
varied  aspects,  as  they  affect  older  performers 
and  listeners. 

[29  ] 


II 

FIDDLER'S  LURE 

Old  King  Cole  is  known  to  most  of  us  as 
a  lazy,  idle  fellow,  who  never  did  anything  but 
sprawl  in  a  luxurious  Maxfield  Parrish  throne 
while  others  fetched  and  fiddled  for  him 
without  ceasing.  Hence,  we  infer,  came  his 
"  merry  old  soul." 

He  has  been  grossly  misrepresented.  The 
true  key  to  his  famous  Gemiithlichkeit  may 
be  found  in  the  fact  that  he  played  the  'cello. 
For  what  more  could  any  amateur  of  cham- 
ber music  desire  than  that  which  lay  for- 
ever at  his  beck  and  call?  In  one  of  his 
posthumous  poems  the  king  declares,  — 

"  A  Stradivarius  underneath  the  bow, 
A  pipe,  a  stein,  to  give  the  music  '  go,' 
My  fiddlers  three  and  opus  fifty-nine  : 1 
This  is  the  merriest  paradise  I  know." 

1  Beethoven's  three  string  quartets,  opus  fifty-nine,  are 
usually  regarded  by  amateur  fiddlers  as  their  Ultima  Thule 
of  difficulty  and  of  delight. 

[30] 


FIDDLER'S  LURE 

What  I  most  admire  in  Cole  is  that  he  was 
not  carried  to  these  musical  skies  "  on  flow'ry 
beds  of  ease,"  like  Hermes,  who,  as  Jacob 
Grimm  declares,  "  was  born  early  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  played  the  lute  at  mid-day."  He  idled 
along  no  royal  road  to  opus  fifty-nine.  There 
was  none.  In  his  day  there  was  as  yet  no  telo- 
melo-'cello  to  be  operated  by  an  electric  button. 
In  the  sweat  of  his  youthful  brow  he  earned 
his  merry  old  soul.  Alone,  with  bow  in  hand, 
it  was  his  to  do  battle  with  those  giants  Griitz- 
macher  and  Giese,  the  Czernys  of  the  'cello. 
He  waded  solo,  in  the  wake  of  his  humblest 
subjects,  through  the  "  bloody  seas  "  of  Du- 
port  and  Romberg.  For  him  the  raw  finger- 
tip, the  twice  furrowed  thumb,  and  the  chronic 
crick  in  the  back  of  the  neck.  Not  only  this. 
He  was  actually  handicapped  in  the  race. 
For  corporate  expansion  had  already  passed 
so  far  beyond  the  royal  control  that,  when  he 
played,  his  arms  stuck  straight  out  in  front 
like  those  of  the  large  'cellist  in  the  Thomas 
Orchestra  whom  we  used  to  call "  The  Frog." 
[31] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

Such  were  King  Cole's  difficulties,  such  his 
incentives  for  toil, —  and  they  were  the  most 
dazzling  incentives  that  any  learner  of  musi- 
cal lore  could  have.  Before  his  eyes  hovered 
the  enchanted  castle  of  Chamber  Music,  fitted 
out  with  fiddlers  three,  with  the  Beethoven 
parts  waiting  on  the  racks,  and  merely  a  'cel- 
list lacking  to  complete  the  magic  circle.  It 
was  a  goal  more  glamorous  than  any  vision 
of  initialed  sweaters  that  ever  lured  the  sore, 
disheartened  little  quarter-back  to  let  himself 
be  battered  about  on  the  scrub  a  week  longer. 
Only  there  was  this  difference, — that  the  royal 
pilgrim  toward  Beethoven's  candy-kitchen  had 
been  sustained,  almost  from  the  first  step, 
on  crumbs  of  the  bulky  sweets  of  his  aspira- 
tion. 

And  how  luscious  and  satisfying  such 
crumbs  are !  How  far  more  indulgent  is  Papa 
Haydn  to  weak,  groping  fingers  and  stiff 
wrists,  than  is  the  man  of  wrath  who  divided 
all  Gaul  into  "  three  halves,"  to  the  tender 
victim  of  amo,  amas,  amat.  As  for  me,  I 
[32  ] 


FIDDLER'S  LURE 

know  that  when  I  began  the  'cello  I  never 
could  have  weathered  the  blasts  of  Dotzhauer, 
or  the  fogs  of  Franchomme,  or  held  a  middle 
course  between  the  scales  of  Scylla  and  the 
double-stops  of  divine  Charybdis,  without  the 
tender  pilotage  of  those  makers  of  music, 
great  and  small,  whose  it  is  to  inspire  and 
guide  little  keels  through  the  troubled  sounds 
of  apprenticeship.  But  I  anticipate. 

At  fifteen,  after  the  checkered  musical 
career  outlined  in  the  previous  chapter,  I  was 
still  devotedly  tootling  the  German  flute, 
which  seemed  to  me  the  divinest  of  instru- 
ments. Then,  one  morning,  I  chanced  upon 
an  old  'cello  in  the  attic,  and  an  instruction- 
book  with  a  long  strip  of  paper  which,  pasted 
under  the  strings,  promised  a  short-cut  to 
virtuosity ;  for  it  pointed  out  exactly  where 
to  put  each  finger.  A  few  tentative  experi- 
ments and  I  fell  devoted  slave  to  this  strange 
mechanism.  My  history  now  resembled  that 
of  "Joy"  in  Collins's  ode  on  The  Passions, 
who  — 

[33] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

"  First  to  the  lively  pipe  his  hand  addrest : 
But  soon  he  saw  the  brisk  awakening  viol 
Whose  sweet  entrancing  voice  he  loved  the  best." 

A  week  of  furtive  practice  convinced  me 
that  I  could  play  the  'cello,  though  I  now 
remember  grasping  the  bow  like  a  tennis- 
racket  and  the  fingerboard  like  a  trolley-strap. 
I  found  one  of  those  jolly  trios  which  Gurlitt 
so  obligingly  wrote  in  notes  of  one  syllable, 
forgathered  with  a  couple  of  schoolmates, 
—  a  brother  and  sister  who  played  the  violin 
and  piano,  —  and  leaped  like  a  flash  into 
King  Cole's  paradise. 

Now,  as  before  remarked,  the  amateur's 
appreciation  of  music  is  apt  to  keep  a  definite 
relation  to  the  character  of  the  instrument  he 
happens  to  play,  and  to  his  proficiency  there- 
upon. And  my  very  first  stammerings  upon 
the  'cello  prepared  me  to  be  delighted  with 
pieces  whose  juvenile  simplicity,  I,  as  a  flexile 
flutist,  would  have  laughed  to  scorn. 

No  effect  of  the  concert  stage  has  ever  en- 
thralled me  more  than  that  first  chord  of  ours, 
[34] 


FIDDLER'S  LURE 

when  I  heard  the  'cello  tone  mingle  deli- 
ciously  with  the  violin  tone,  and  realized  that 
my  bow  had  made  such  blending  possible. 
The  flute  notes  had  never  really  mixed  with 
others,  but  had  stood  apart  by  themselves, 
crystalline,  cold,  aloof ;  and  perhaps  my  na- 
ture had  taken  its  cue  from  the  flute.  But 
that  first  trio  venture  changed  everything. 
There  first  I  tasted  the  delights  of  real  har- 
mony, —  and  sealed  eternal  friendship,  before 
parting,  with  the  little  girl  who  played  the 
piano.  Along  with  democracy  and  puppy- 
love,  the  'cello  came  into  my  life.  Heralded  so 
impressively,  no  wonder  it  tangled  its  strings 
hopelessly  among  those  of  my  young  heart. 
For  a  time  I  kept  on  indulging  in  Gurlitt 
and  considering  myself  a  master.  Then  I  went 
West  to  live  with  Walthers,  an  enthusiastic 
amateur  violinist,  —  and  experienced  a  severe 
shock.  For  I  learned  what  adult  chamber  mu- 
sic was.  Gurlitt  fell  from  my  eyes  like  scales, 
and  the  conviction  came  that  once  I  could 
hold  a  part  in  the  trios  of  Gade  or  the  quartets 
[35] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

of  Rubinstein  I  might  be  gathered  contentedly 
to  my  fathers ;  I  would  have  warmed  both 
hands  before  the  fire  of  life,  and  could  then 
anticipate  nothing  but  carrying  out  the  ashes. 

Spurred  thus,  I  found  a  teacher  and  un- 
learned the  empirical  method  with  groanings 
which  cannot  here  be  uttered ;  while  ambition 
was  kept  in  vigorous  health  by  Walthers's 
nightly  seances  of  chamber  music  with  more 
accomplished  players  than  I. 

Finally  the  dreamed-of  moment  came.  I 
was  permitted  to  try  my  hand.  The  others 
suffered  in  silence.  As  for  me,  from  then  on 
life  held  a  gluttonous  measure  of  unalloyed 
bliss.  The  delights  of  that  performance  could 
not  have  been  more  thrilling  to  me  if,  with 
true  Orphic  cunning,  my  instrument  had 
caused  the  dining-table  to  rustle  its  leaves 
and  the  cat  to  perform  on  the  hearth-rug  the 
dance  of  the  seven  veils.  I  could  play  the 
notes — most  of  them — loud  and  clear.  What 
more  does  the  hardened  amateur  demand  from 
life?  For  the  second  time  I  supposed  myself 
[36] 


FIDDLER'S  LURE 

a  master,  and  was  ready  to  sing  my  Nunc 
dimittis,  —  and  to  practice  cheerfully  three 
hours  a  day. 

Then  I  heard  a  professional  quartet.  The 
flame  of  mere  sound  and  fury  set  for  me. 
Kneisel  and  Schroeder  with  the  host  of  heaven 
came.  And  lo !  creation  widened  in  my  view. 
With  amazement  I  began  to  realize  the  sub- 
tle potentialities  of  tone-color,  the  fascina- 
tions of  dynamics ;  and  the  fact  that  to  me 
the  word  pianissimo  had  been  an  almost 
meaningless  expression.  I  began  to  count 
that  musical  self-assertiveness  almost  inde- 
cent which  fiddles  away  forever  with  a  noise 
like  the  sound  of  many  waters  ;  and  to  won- 
der why,  whenever  the  average  amateur  meets 
with  the  sign  sf  under  his  music,  he  is  apt  to 
look  so  much  harder  at  the /than  at  the  s. 
My  heart  leaped  up  in  response  to  that  com- 
plete ensemble,  —  four  bows  with  but  a  sin- 
gle thought,  —  to  the  variety  of  the  tonal 
effects,  to  the  technic  so  taken  for  granted 
that  it  never  revealed  itself  or  its  basal  sheep- 
[37  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

gut,  horsehair,  and  resin.  Here  at  last,  to  set 
final  bounds  for  aspiration,  was  the  authentic 
oracle  of  Apollo,  —  and  the  practice  hours 
accordingly  aspired  from  three  to  six. 

After  the  first  few  enthusiastic  years  of 
dalliance  with  chamber  music  one  finds  that 
he  is  becoming  less  and  less  easily  lured.  His 
musical  palate  grows  more  discriminating.  It 
takes  a  Brahms  to-day  to  brim  the  cup  of  joy 
which  a  Raff  then  sweetly  overflowed.  As 
for  those  garbled  symphonies  and  operas,  — 
the  transcriptions  at  which  one  once  fiddled 
away  so  happily  and  in  such  good  faith, — 
to-day  one  is  callous  enough  to  brand  them 
as  "  derangements." 

Nevertheless,  as  I  look  back  through  the 
years  to  that  time,  three  significant  facts 
emerge.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  clear  that  I 
never  would  have  persevered  in  all  that  pain- 
ful practice  without  the  weekly  reward  of 
"  virtuosity"  when,  every  Saturday  afternoon, 
little  Miss  Second  Violin  and  dear  big  Mr. 
Viola  came  from  town  and  were  rushed  out 
[  38  1 


FIDDLER'S  LURE 

of  their  overcoats  and  had  their  hands  warmed 
with  jubilant  massage  and  then  were  plumped 
down  before  the  G  major  Mozart  and  hardly 
allowed  time  for  preliminary  caterwaulings 
before  Walthers's  firm  command  came,  "  No 
ante-mortems ! "  and  his  "three-four"  deton- 
ated, and  at  last  we  were  outward  bound  for 
fairy-land. 

Yet  even  that  Mozartian  reward  —  joyous 
as  it  was — would  scarcely  have  kept  me  so 
long  on  the  rack  of  the  thumb-positions, 
or  doubled  up  in  the  chromatic  treadmill, 
had  it  not  been  for  the  "far-off,  divine 
event"  symbolized  by  the  opus  fifty-nine, 
gleaming  just  within  the  portals  of  King 
Cole's  castle. 

Ah,  there  is  nothing  like  a  taste  of  cham- 
ber music  to  make  the  idle  apprentice  in- 
dustrious. It  is  the  real  fiddler's  lure,  —  the 
kindly  light  that  has  the  power  to  lead  him 
o'er  musical  moor  and  fen,  o'er  crag  and  tor- 
rent, till  the  dusk  of  mere  technic  merges 
into  the  dawn  of  attainment.  I  sometimes 
[39] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

wonder  why  American  parents  do  not  realize 
what  kind  of  love  it  is  that  makes  the  musical 
world  go  round.  German  parents  do  —  and 
that  leads  to  my  secondly. 

German  parents  know,  also,  that  there  is 
nothing  better  for  the  unity  of  the  home  than 
the  sport  of  chamber  music.  To  associate  the 
hearth  in  the  children's  minds  with  the  inti- 
mate, exquisite  democracy  of  ensemble,  with 
the  rapture  of  perpetually  new  achievement, 
with  the  spirit  of  beauty  and  an  ever  grow- 
ing appreciation  of  that  spirit,  is  to  go  far 
toward  insuring  the  success  of  the  family,  and 
even  the  solidarity  of  the  neighborhood. 

Chamber  music  as  a  home  sport  can  accom- 
plish yet  more.  Who  can  doubt,  in  the  third 
place,  that  fiddler's  lure  helps  in  smoothing 
the  child's  way  through  life  ?  For  the  expe- 
rienced amateur  of  chamber  music,  go  where 
he  will,  even  in  our  demi-musical  country,  is 
sure  of  a  welcome.  His  bow  is  a  master  key 
to  many  doors.  And  the  welcome  is  not  al- 
ways for  the  fiddle  alone.  It  is  often  still 
[40] 


FIDDLER'S   LURE 

more  hearty  for  the  fiddler.  Because  the 
democracy,  the  constant  give-and-take  of  the 
quartet  and  trio  and  sonata  has  extracted  a 
deal  of  the  stiffness  and  conceit  and  dogmat- 
ism from  him  and  left  him  more  human  and 
more  diplomatic. 

Besides  all  these  advantages,  his  talent 
adds  a  perpetual  sparkle  of  romance  —  real 
or  potential — to  what  might  otherwise  have 
turned  out  a  hopelessly  dun  existence.  You 
never  can  tell  what  friend-ever-after  may  not 
come  rushing  up  to  you  after  a  concert  with 
glowing  face  and  outstretched  hand  to  an- 
nounce himself.  (I  know  a  man  who  first  be- 
held his  wife  across  the  footlight  candles  as 
he  was  ending  an  amateur  flute  solo.)  A  cer- 
tain 'cellist  was  once  snowbound  for  three 
hours  at  a  small  railroad  station.  He  unpacked 
his  'cello  and  played  his  dozen  fellow  sufferers 
a  request  programme,  with  the  result  that 
one  of  them  took  him  to  Europe  for  a  year. 
You  never  can  tell,  as  you  bear  your  precious 
fiddle-box  through  the  streets,  what  magic 
[41] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

casement  may  not  open  on  the  foam  (of  steins), 
and  what  faery  hand  may  not  beckon  you 
within  to  do  the  one  thing  needful  to  opus 
fifty-nine,  or  draw  a  valiant  bow  in  the  battle 
of  Schumann  Quintet. 

True  amateurs  of  chamber  music  do  not 
often  have  to  be  formally  introduced.  Theo- 
dore Thomas  used  to  declare  that  he  could 
tell  a  violinist  from  a  'cellist  on  the  street 
by  the  swing  of  his  arms.  By  kindred  signs 
so  subtle  as  to  escape  the  layman,  initiates 
recognize  each  other  everywhere.  And  it  is 
this  world-wide  confraternity  of  fiddlers  that 
makes  travel  for  the  true  amateur  such  a  joy- 
ous series  of  adventures. 

It  is  particularly  joyous,  of  course,  in  Ger- 
many, where  every  third  house  holds  a  de- 
votee ready  to  welcome  a  brother  chamber 
musician  with  open  arms.  In  Doctor  Hale's 
famous  story,  the  belated  traveler  through  a 
hostile  countryside  had  merely  to  murmur 
"  In  His  name,"  and  hospitable  hearths  blazed 
for  him  like  magic.  But  in  certain  German 
[42] 


FIDDLER'S  LURE 

villages,  i£  you  are  really  of  the  elect,  you 
need  not  say  a  word.  You  have  merely  to 
whistle  some  theme  from  opus  fifty-nine. 

During  many  years  I  have  cherished  an  al- 
luring plan  for  a  sort  of  musical  Inland  Voy- 
age. The  outfit  would  comprise  fiddlers  three 
who  would  have  to  be  kindred  spirits  of  mine, 
a  house-boat,  a  complete  library  of  chamber 
music,  —  and  a  cook.  Then  we  would  float 
down  some  beautiful  German  river,  the  Elbe, 
say,  or  the  Neckar,  and  sit  playing  quartets 
on  the  sunny  deck  until  we  came  to  a  village 
that  looked  unmistakably  chamber-musical. 
There  we  would  land  and  invite  all  the  local 
members  of  our  great  confraternity  to  repair 
to  us.  With  them  —  yea,  even  unto  the  limits 
of  the  loathed  nonet  —  we  would  perform 
mightily  before  the  populace  assembled  on 
the  shore,  until  it  pleased  us  to  cast  off  and 
drift  down  to  adventures  new. 

Our  craft  should  bear  three  inscriptions. 
Round  about  the  prow  we  would  write,  — 

"  To-morrow's  tangle  to  the  winds  resign." 
[43] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

The  Faerie  Queene  would  furnish  the  motto 
astern :  — 

"  Ne  care,  ne  feare  I,  how  the  wind  do  blow, 
Or  whether  swift  I  wend,  or  whether  slow." 

And,  fluttering  so  high  aloft  as  not  to  rhyme 
with  Omar's  injunction,  a  pennon  would  pro- 
claim 

"  Music  does  all  our  joys  refine 
And  gives  the  relish  to  our  wine." 

Perhaps  we  should  be  arrested  as  unofficial 
vagrants  and  haled  on  shore  to  pay  a  fine  of 
twelve  cents  and  a  half.  Perhaps,  even  more 
delightful,  some  famous  composer  whom  we 
had  all  loved  from  afar  might  be  summering 
at  one  of  the  river  Dbrfer,  and  might  board 
us  and  enter  into  the  spirit  of  the  quest,  and, 
with  his  revered  feet,  like  as  not,  trailing  in 
the  water  back  by  the  tiller,  would  then  and 
there  compose  and  dedicate  with  heartfeltest 
representations  of  his  imperishable  esteem  to 
the  high-well-born  Fiddlers-four,  his  destined- 
to-be-world-famous  Vagabondia  Quartet.  But 
alas !  I  fear  me  that  the  Musical  Inland  Voy- 
[44] 


FIDDLER'S  LURE 

age,  fraught  as  it  is  with  rich  possibilities  in 
the  way  of  music  and  life, —  and  magazine 
articles,  —  is  destined  to  be  the  booty  of  fatter 
purses  and  more  golden  pens  than  mine. 

At  any  rate,  let  us  have  done  with  the 
utilitarian  side  of  fiddler's  lure,  —  its  toil- 
persuading,  home-solidifying,  friend-attract- 
ing, romance-compelling  attributes.  The  royal 
sport  I  would  sing  for  its  own  sake. 

Why  is  ensemble  music  the  sole  recrea- 
tion definitely  promised  us  in  the  future  life  ? 
Obviously  because  it  combines  the  most  fun 
with  the  fewest  drawbacks.  Milton,  indeed, 
goes  so  far  as  to  give  the  angelic  musicians 
"harps  ever  tuned,"  thereby  reducing  the 
drawbacks  to  zero.  True,  we  hear  something 
of  these  harps  being  played  en  masse,  which 
smacks  more  of  orchestral  than  of  chamber 
music ;  though  I  cherish  a  hope  that  these 
masses  are  merely  proportioned  to  the  size  of 
the  chambers  in  the  upper  mansions.  How- 
ever this  may  be,  we  can  rest  assured  that 
there  wait  above,  the  nobler  delights  of  the 
[45  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

string  quartet,  though  reserved,  perhaps,  for 
those  sainted  capitalists,  those  plutocrats,  of 
bliss  who  have  on  earth  laid  up  the  fattest 
dividends  in  heaven  through  dynamic  self- 
abnegation  when  it  was  the  other  fellow's 
turn  for  a  solo.  For  has  not  Melozzo  da  Forli 
immortalized  for  us  on  the  walls  of  St.  Peter's 
a  small  combination  of  angelic  amateurs  who 
are  having  a  simply  heavenly  time  — 

Where  quartet-parties  ne'er  break  up 
And  evenings  never  end  ? 

By  referring  to  "  the  nobler  delights  of 
the  string  quartet,"  I  mean  that  chamber 
music  has  a  number  of  advantages  over  or- 
chestral. There  is  the  literature,  for  example. 
The  majority  of  the  classic  composers  have 
been  more  happily  inspired  when  writing 
for  the  smaller  groups  of  instruments,  and  I 
know  of  three  quartets  and  one  trio  for  every 
symphony  of  equal  musical  worth.  Vivitur 
parvo  bene,  indeed,  in  the  musical  camera. 

The  string  quartet  possesses  another  little 
realized  advantage  over  the  orchestra :  it  can 
[46] 


FIDDLER'S  LURE 

play  in  perfect  tune.  It  can  follow  the  nat- 
ural law  decreeing  that  G  sharp  is  eternally 
different  from  A  flat.  It  does  not  have  to 
"  temper  "  the  wind  to  the  shorn  bassoon  like 
the  orchestra,  which  finds  its  tonal  life  by 
losing  it.  For  the  latter,  to  secure  concord 
among  those  baser  instruments  worked  by 
keys,  compromises  by  taking  a  nondescript, 
hybrid  note  and  declaring  it  to  be  both  G 
sharp  and  A  flat,  that  is,  both  white  and 
black,  though  its  mongrel  gray  is  palpable. 

Besides  these  literary  and  scientific  advan- 
tages, —  the  boon  of  playing  "  where  Art 
and  Nature  sing  and  smile,"  —  the  quartet 
has  the  added  advantage  of  democracy.  Now, 
the  orchestra  is  a  monarchy,  if  not  a  tyranny, 
and  is  aristocratic  to  its  very  bow-tips ;  but 
in  the  republic  of  the  string  quartet  there 
are  no  wretched  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers 
of  water.  All  men  are  free  and  equal.  And 
though  the  first  violin  may  sparkle,  the  'cello 
wear  its  heart  on  its  sleeve,  and  the  viola  sigh 
out  its  mystic  soul  to  the  moon  with  more 
[47] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

abandon,  perhaps,  than  the  fourth  member, 
yet  Secondo  knows  that  he  is  quite  as  import- 
ant as  any  of  his  brothers.  Liberte,  egalite, 
fraternite.  These  make  the  quartet  as  fertile 
of  friendships  as  the  rush-line.  There  is  a 
constant  give-and-take  among  the  members, 
a  constant  pocketing  of  one's  personal  thun- 
der in  favor  of  the  man  with  the  message  of 
melody. 

And  then  the  humor  of  the  thing,  —  the 
infinite  varieties  of  incongruity  that  are  al- 
ways popping  up.  There  are  the  accidents, 
for  instance ;  as  when  grave  and  reverend 
signor  'cello  sits  splash  into  a  musical  puddle ; 
or,  at  the  uttermost  tension  of  his  fine,  careless 
rapture,  the  first  violin's  E  string  slips  slowly 
to  earth  with  a  most  unmusical,  most  melan- 
choly yowl.  There  is  the  endless  play  of  hu- 
mor in  the  music  itself,  and  the  sudden  droll 
resemblances  of  the  players  to  non-musical 
groups  of  the  philistine  world  outside,  as 
when  the  miscellaneous  group  of  amateurs  in 
Somehow  Good  reminded  De  Morgan  of  a 
[48] 


FIDDLER'S  LURE 

court  scene,  in  "the  swift  pertinence  of  the 
repartees  of  the  first  violin  to  the  second,  the 
apt  resume  and  orderly  reorganization  of 
their  epigrammatic  interchanges  by  the  'cello 
and  the  double-bass,  the  steady  typewritten 
report  and  summary  of  the  whole  by  the 
pianoforte,  and  the  regretful  exception  to  so 
many  reports  taken  by  the  clarionet." 

A  most  convincing  proof  of  the  joy-giving 
qualities  of  chamber  music  is  the  attitude 
of  the  professional  musician  toward  it.  One 
rarely  hears  of  the  reporter  haunting  the  po- 
lice court  during  off  hours,  or  of  the  mail- 
carrier  indulging  in  a  holiday  walking-tour. 
But  many  a  jaded  teacher  and  slave  of  the 
orchestra  finds  his  real  raison  d'etre  in  turn- 
ing amateur  for  an  hour  or  two  and  playing 
chamber  music  "  for  fun." 

I  crossed  once  on  a  German  liner  which 
had  an  excellent  orchestra  among  the  stew- 
ards. This  was  kept  at  a  surprisingly  high 
standard,  though  the  members  were  over- 
whelmed with  menial  occupations  as  hard  on 
[49] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

a  fiddler's  fingers  as  on  his  temperament ;  I 
still  remember  the  pang  it  cost  to  see  the  art- 
ist who  had  just  been  leading  the  Unfinished 
Symphony  so  divinely,  staggering  along  with 
a  pail  of  slops.  But  the  spirit  of  the  true 
chamber-musician  is  Antsean.  It  developed 
that  the  men  had  formed  a  quartet,  and  every 
evening  that  they  were  in  port  they  practiced 
together  after  the  severe  toil  of  the  day, 
"just  for  fun."  My  old  viola-playing  stew- 
ard touched  me  not  a  little  when  he  inquired 
if  I  had  ever  come  across  "  the  miracle-quar- 
tets of  Mozart."  With  the  flashing  eye  of 
youth,  he  told  how  he  and  his  comrades  had 
discovered  them  a  few  weeks  before.  "  Und 
now,"  he  cried,  "  to  blay  dem  over  eveninks 
—  dat  iss  all  what  we  live  for  ! "  When  it 
comes  to  comparative  capacities  for  pleasure, 
however,  the  amateur,  with  his  fresher,  keener 
musical  appetite  and  unimpaired  digestion, 
can  usually  give  odds  to  the  professional.  In 
my  opinion,  the  real  earthly  paradise  is  the 
amateur  quartet  party. 

[50] 


FIDDLER'S  LURE 

There  remains  a  perfect  memory  of  such 
an  experience  in  one  of  the  loveliest  parts  of 
Canada,  at  the  home  of  two  brothers,  good 
friends,  good  fiddlers,  and  good  fellows.  As 
second  violinist  we  had  the  best  professional 
in  that  part  of  the  Dominion.  For  one  swift 
fortnight  in  that  old  mansion,  girt  with  lawns 
and  woods  and  waters,  surrounded  by  con- 
genial souls  and  the  rare  warmth  of  old-time 
Canadian  hospitality,  I  tasted  an  experience 
that  now  seems  like  a  visit  to  the  Avilion  of 
some  other  existence.  Quartets  were  inter- 
woven with  lacrosse ;  eager  talk  with  forest 
excursions  and  trios  and  tennis  ;  sonatas  with 
swims ;  poetry  with  pantry-parties ;  canoeing 
with  quintets.  Though  our  standards  were 
not  quite  as  lofty  as  those  of  professionals  — 
such  as  they  were,  we  were  actually  attaining 
them ;  and  what  artist  ever  does  that  ? 

Never,  since  our  bows  trembled  on  that  last, 

poignant  cadence  of  opus  fifty-nine,  have  I 

enjoyed  another  such  musical  lark.    And  I 

sometimes  wonder  why  it  is  that  we  American 

[51  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

amateurs  are  so  long-facedly  academic  over 
our  music ;  why  we  do  not  extract  more  fun 
from  it.  Certainly  we  possess  three  of  the 
prime  requisites  for  enjoying  the  quartet: 
love  of  adventure,  good  nerve,  and  that  ready 
sympathy  for  the  other  fellow's  point  of  view, 
which  is  vulgarly  known  as  "  sporting  blood." 

One  of  the  chamber  musician's  chief  de- 
lights is  to  "read," — to  spread  out  on  the 
racks  the  crisp  new  parts,  take  a  deep  breath, 
and  strike  out  with  his  mates  into  uncharted 
waters,  tensely  strung  as  a  captain  in  the  fog, 
now  shaving  a  sunken  rock,  now  becalmed 
on  a  languorous  mirror,  now  in  the  grip  of  a 
hurricane  off  a  lee  shore.  Or,  if  the  adven- 
ture prove  not  so  desperate  as  this,  at  least 
one  feels  the  stimulus,  the  constant  exciting 
variety  as  in  a  close  game  of  tennis,  where  — 
no  matter  what  the  emergency  —  one  can  ex- 
ultantly depend  upon  himself  to  take  meas- 
ures not  wholly  inadequate  to  the  occasion. 

And,  as  in  tennis  doubles,  there  is  that 
same  strange,  wireless,  telepathic  something 
[52  ] 


FIDDLER'S  LURE 

shuttling  back  and  forth  between  the  com- 
rades in  the  venture,  —  urging,  cautioning, 
praising,  advising  with  lightning  speed,  sav- 
ing the  other  from  utter  disaster  by  a  hair, 
adding,  bar  for  bar,  the  ineffable  commentary 
of  the  subliminal,  —  a  thing  more  akin  than 
aught  else  I  can  imagine  to  the  communion 
of  disembodied  spirits. 

More  memorable  yet,  the  experience  when 
the  mysterious  waves  of  these  soundless  words 
break  beyond  the  little  excited  circle  of 
players,  seemingly  so  intent  upon  the  notes 
alone, —  and  compel  the  listeners;  bending 
them  to  the  music's  mood. 

Most  other-worldly  of  all  it  is  when,  in 
playing  with  those  near  and  dear,  these  waves 
go  forth  and  find  among  the  hearers  such 
capacious,  creative,  resonant  spirits  that  they 
recoil  in  tenfold  volume  to  overwhelm  the 
players,  so  that  time  and  space  and  the  feel 
of  bow  and  finger-board  go  utterly  lost  and 
the  very  presence  of  the  instrument  passes, 
and,  rapt  out  of  touch  and  sight,  one's  self 
[53] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

is  only  such  another  medium  for  the  soul's 
expression  as  are  the  throbbing  strings  them- 
selves.   Then  it  is  that  — 

In  ways  unlike  the  labored  ways  of  earth  — 

One  knows  not  how  — 

That  part  of  man  which  is  most  worth 

Comes  forth  at  call  of  this  old  sarabande 

And  lays  a  spirit  hand 

With  yours  upon  the  strings  that  understand. 

Your  painter-friend  over  yonder  in  the  corner 
with  closed  eyes,  —  how  he  is  offering  all  the 
tender,  sonorous,  melting,  glowing  resources 
of  his  young  palette  to  color  the  music  that 
stirs  beneath  your  unconscious  fingers.  And 
there  in  the  doorway  leans  the  pale  sculptor, 
the  wonder-worker  who  can,  'from  the  sterile 
womb  of  stone,  raise  children  unto  God.'  In 
every  fibre  you  feel  that  he  is  there, — 

To  make  that  sarabande  in  form  more  fair. 

See  in  the  far  window-seat  our  lady  of  song. 
How  the  string  voices  broaden,  turn  canorous 
under  her  silent  gaze !  Brother,  can  you  not 
feel  the  very  heart  of  the  music  pulse  faster, — 
[54] 


FIDDLER'S  LURE 

As  our  dear  poet  with  the  glowing  eyes 

Brings  to  the  shrine  of  tone  his  evening  sacrifice  ? 

Ah !  lure  of  lures,  indeed,  —  the  memory  of 
incomparable  hours  like  these 

When  our  sheer  souls,  in  the  immortal  way, 
Have  uttered  what  our  lips  might  never  say  ; 

—  the  hope  of  hours  yet  in  store  ■when  —  as 
in  no  other  way  earth  offers  —  we  may  "  feel 
that  we  are  greater  than  we  know." 


Ill 

THE   CREATIVE  LISTENER 

How  is  an  artist  going  to  make  a  masterpiece  unless  the 
public  makes  half  of  it  ?  —  Senhouse,  in  Halfway  House. 

Svengali  never  really  hypnotized  Trilby, 
and  where  the  book  says  so  it  is  merely  in- 
dulging in  poetic  hyperbole.  The  fact  is, 
Svengali  was  such  a  master  of  the  art  of  list- 
ening that,  whenever  he  was  in  the  audience, 
Trilby  could  not  help  singing  better  than  she 
knew  how.  Too  bad  that  the  dramatic  re- 
quirements forced  the  author  to  make  him 
such  a  horrid  old  villain !  Otherwise  he  might 
have  stood  as  the  classic  type  of  that  most 
inspiringand  necessary  and  admirable  person, 
the  creative  listener. 

Though  very  few  realize  it,  there  is  nothing 

uncanny  or  very  difficult  about  the  practice 

of  creative  listening.  A  few  weeks  of  work 

that  is  more  than  half  play  will  fit  almost 

[56] 


THE   CREATIVE  LISTENER 

anybody  to  be  as  organic  a  part  of  the  con- 
cert performance  as  is  the  business-like  little 
man  behind  the  drums,  or  the  shaggy  being 
who  breathes  vernal  zephyrs  into  the  French 
horn. 

Wagner  called  true  listeners  natural-born 
poets.  Now,  while  it  is  true  that  creative  list- 
eners, like  poets,  are  born  and  not  made,  yet 
far  more  of  the  former  are  born.  In  fact, 
nearly  everybody  enters  life  with  possibili- 
ties along  this  line.  And  how  is  any  deaf, 
inglorious  dummy  in  the  audience  to  know 
whether  or  not  he  was  intended  to  be  the 
Milton  of  listening  until  he  has  given  his  in- 
tellect a  chance  at  the  possibly  latent  gift  ? 
Just  as  plow-boy  poets  must,  some  time  or 
other,  quaff  at  the  fount  of  metrics  and  form, 
so  the  best  of  natural  listeners  have  to  learn 
the  science  of  their  art  before  they  can  be 
called  finished  artists. 

These  facts  are,  as  yet,  known  only  to  the 
initiated  few.  And  this  is  where  the  fun  of 
writing  about  creative  listening  comes  in. 
[57  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

Because,  while  music  is  by  all  odds  the  pet 
art  of  humanity,  humanity  has  at  present  such 
a  wistful,  hopeless  attitude  towards  it. 

The  ordinary  person  regrets  few  things 
more  in  life  than  his  inability  to  play  or  sing. 
Or,  if  he  does  play  or  sing,  he  regrets  all  the 
more  wistfully  his  inability  to  play  or  sing 
well.  He  calls  music  "the  universal  lan- 
guage "  and,  unless  he  can  talk  it  loud  and 
clear,  he  looks  as  pathetically  shamed  as  the 
after-dinner  orator  who,  after  mute  agonies, 
sinks  back  into  the  poignant  silence  without 
having  been  able  to  utter  a  syllable. 

Look  closely  enough  during  any  concert 
and  you  will  see,  hovering  above  the  audi- 
ence, the  sad  smoke  of  heart-burning.  The 
folk  in  the  plush  seats  are  sick  for  self-ex- 
pression. They  yearn  to  bear  a  hand  in  the 
divine  game.  They,  too,  would  be  "all  glo- 
rious in  song,"  —  pitiful,  barren  souls  that 
they  suppose  themselves  to  be,  grieving  like 
Lamb,  the  lonely  bachelor,  for  their  "  dream- 
children." 

[58] 


THE  CREATIVE  LISTENER 

To  all  such  mourners  it  is  my  delightful 
privilege  to  explain  that  their  dream-children 
need  not  be  compacted  of  dreams  alone  ;  — 
to  hold  out  the  promise  of  an  art  whereby 
they  may  become  as  creative  as  that  great 
hearer  whom  Wagner  once  thanked  for  the 
inestimable  gift  of  Tristan,  implying  that 
she  listened  to  his  playing  as  mightily  "as 
Briinnhilde  listened  to  Wotan." 

It  takes  two  to  make  music :  one  to  per- 
form ;  one  to  appreciate.  And  he  is  wise,  in- 
deed, who  can  discern  which  of  the  two  is  the 
more  important. 

Now,  in  olden  times  it  would  not  have 
occurred  to  any  one  to  decide  the  relative 
claims  of  performer  and  listener,  because  when 
the  arts  were  young  they  were  such  intensely 
democratic  affairs.  No  distinction  was  drawn 
between  artist  and  audience,  for  all  men 
were  alternately  artist  and  audience. 

Even  to-day  in  some  of  the  more  primi- 
tive parts  of  the  world  no  social  function  is 
complete  until  the  psaltery  has  passed  from 
[59] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

hand  to  hand,  or  the  harp  with  the  solemn 
sound,  or  whatever  the  local  instrument 
chances  to  be,  and  each  member  of  the  circle 
has  extemporized  a  song  to  his  own  accom- 
paniment. Such  functions  are  reminders  of 
the  good  old  days  when  all  men  were  free  and 
equal  in  the  realm  of  music, —  when,  even 
though  the  other  fellow  happened  to  be  per- 
forming, you  kept  on  listening  to  the  music 
with  the  player's  active  sense  of  creation, 
but  unembarrassed  by  his  handicaps. 

Then  after  a  while  an  aristocratic  thing 
called  technic  came,  and  seemed  to  fix  an  un- 
bridgable  gulf  between  player  and  listener. 
Hence  the  wistfulness  of  modern  concert  au- 
diences who  gaze  across  this  gulf  to  the  realms 
of  gold  on  the  other  side  with  as  poignant 
a  longing  in  their  eyes  as  if  they  had  once 
been  driven  out  of  them  by  a  flaming  sword. 

At  this  sad  stage  of  the  proceedings  enters 
science  to  declare  this  gulf  a  figment  of  the 
modern  imagination,  —  to  show  that  the  au- 
dience is  a  more  integral  part  of  the  perform- 
[  GO  ] 


THE  CREATIVE   LISTENER 

ance  than  it  has  ever  suspected.  The  recent 
tendency  of  scientific  thought  is  to  explain 
man's  craving  for  artistic  expression  along 
social  rather  than  individualistic  lines ;  to  dis- 
cuss the  apparently  passive  function  of  the 
appreciator  in  active,  creative  terms. 

A  bird's-eye  view  of  this  speculation  is  so 
essential  to  a  proper  understanding  of  the 
art  of  creative  listening  that  there  is  here 
proposed  to  my  more  vigorous  readers  a  brief 
but  stony  and  rather  steep  scramble  among 
the  foothills  of  aesthetics.  Non-climbers  please 
skip. 

A  number  of  prominent  European  thinkers 
have  come  to  believe  that  when  we  enjoy  a 
statue,  for  instance,  we  unconsciously  imitate 
its  pose  and  suggested  movements.  Not  only 
with  our  eyes  but  also,  in  a  rudimentary 
way,  with  our  whole  bodies  do  we  follow  its 
outlines.  We  feel  our  way  into  the  statue 
physically  as  well  as  mentally  so  as  to  incorpo- 
rate it  into  our  actual  experience.  And  thus 
with  the  products  of  the  other  arts  as  well. 
[61  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

With  unsuspected  thoroughness  we  insinuate 
ourselves  into  the  appreciation  of  them.  Our 
very  bodies  resound  the  rhythms  of  Rem- 
brandt and  Shakespeare,  of  von  Steinbach 
and  Beethoven. 

Every  one  has  experienced  his  body's  ten- 
dency to  feel  its  way  into  music  by  nodding 
or  tapping  time  to  it.  And  I  believe  that 
most  of  us  may  detect  in  our  throats  or  lips, 
even  when  we  merely  think  of  a  tune,  certain 
slight,  involuntary  contractions  or  puckerings 
which  are  the  rudimentary  attempts  of  our 
subconscious  selves  to  sing  or  whistle  in  imi- 
tation. And  not  alone  do  our  bodies  thus 
try  to  reproduce  reality;  they  even  imitate 
our  ideals.  Witness  the  unconscious  contor- 
tions of  the  billiard-player  as  his  cue-ball 
misses  the  other  by  a  hair. 

This  imitation  theory  of  art  appreciation 
has  been  of  service  to  the  Finlander,  Yrjo 
Him,  in  his  brilliant,  pioneer  work  of  de- 
monstrating how  social  a  thing  the  creative 
impulse  is.  He  believes  that  art  came  into 
[62  ] 


THE  CREATIVE   LISTENER 

existence  chiefly  because  it  is  natural  for 
every  " feeling-state  "  to  "manifest  itself  ex- 
ternally." This  process  tends,  in  the  first 
place,  to  heighten  the  artist's  pleasure  and 
relieve  his  pain.  And,  because  "  art  is  essen- 
tially social,"  it  tends,  in  the  second  place, 
to  "  awaken  similar  feelings  in  other  human 
beings  who  perceive  the  manifestation  ;  and 
their  sympathetic  feeling  reacts  upon  the 
author  of  the  original  manifestation  .  .  . 
heightening  in  him  the  feeling-state  which 
gave  rise  to  it." 

Years  ago  Emerson's  prophetic  vision 
caught  a  glimpse  of  this  truth  and  embodied 
it  in  the  splendid  passage  in  which  he  spoke 
of  "  that  which  man  was  tending  to  do  in  a 
given  period,  and  was  hindered,  or,  if  you 
will,  modified  in  doing,  by  the  interfering 
volitions  of  Phidias,  of  Dante,  of  Shake- 
speare, the  organ  whereby  man  at  the  mo- 
ment wrought." 

Hirn  explains  how  the  sympathetic  re- 
sponse of  the  appreciator  is  greatly  intensified 
[63] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

by  the  sort  of  unconscious  imitation  -which 
we  have  been  considering;  and  how  it  recoils 
back  from  the  appreciator  to  the  creator  and 
back  again  to  the  appreciator,  and  so  on, 
back  and  forth,  growing  in  stimulating  power 
at  each  recoil.  The  whole  process  is  like  a  hot 
"volley"  in  tennis,  with  the  opponents  closing 
in  on  each  other  and  the  ball  shuttling  across 
the  net  faster  with  every  stroke  as  the  point 
gains  in  excitement  and  pleasure.  "  Social 
resonance"  might  be  a  good  way  of  describ- 
ing the  thing.  And  it  resounds  more  effect- 
ively in  music  than  in  any  other  art. 

There  is  a  vast  difference  between  the 
creative  appreciator  who  feels  his  way  into 
a  statue,  cathedral,  or  painting,  and  the 
creative  listener  to  a  musical  —  or  dramatic 
—  performance.  However  fully  the  former 
may  project  himself  into  the  statue  and  re- 
sound its  rhythm,  his  feelings  cannot  alter 
the  finished  marble  in  the  least ;  although 
of  course  the  expectation  of  his  sympathy 
may  have  stimulated  the  sculptor  in  his 
[64] 


THE  CREATIVE  LISTENER 

modeling,  or  the  memory  thereof  may  lift 
him  to  higher  flights  in  future  work.  Still, 
the  appreciator  is  powerless  to  affect  the 
stone  as  it  stands  on  the  pedestal,  simply 
because  a  statue  cannot  be  recreated  like  a 
symphony. 

Music,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  sort  of 
chronic  Nicodemus.  It  must  be  born  again 
whenever  it  would  enter  into  the  kingdom 
of  the  human  soul. 

It  is  exactly  this  necessity  that  makes  the 
listener  so  important  a  factor  in  music ;  for 
every  listener  in  some  way  affects  the  quality 
of  its  reproduction.  And  if  he  is  a  mighty 
man  of  creative  valor  he  can  even  reduce  the 
player  or  singer  at  times  to  a  mere  vehicle 
for  what  science  would  call  the  "  exterioriza- 
tion "  of  his  own  emotion,  as  Svengali  re- 
duced Trilby. 

The  performer  is  the  violin  string,  and  the 

listener,  the  resonant  body  of  the  instrument. 

Without  the  wooden  sounding-box  the  strand 

of  sheep's-gut  would  strike  ludicrously  thin 

[65] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

upon  the  ear.  Without  the  string  the  music 
would  be  mute. 

Thus,  though  the  player  first  makes  audi- 
ble the  poetry  of  the  universal  language,  his 
recitation  will  not  be  effective  without  the 
cooperation  of  the  creative  listener.  The  two 
are  absolute  correlatives.  The  beautiful  thing 
is  that  the  more  such  a  listener  receives,  the 
more  he  gives.  Mundane  music  would  soon 
come  to  be  a  fitting  overture  to  the  music  of 
the  spheres  if  our  audiences  were  composed 
wholly  of  listeners  like  Wagner's  friend,  or 
even  like  the  man  I  once  read  of  in  The  Hib- 
bert  Journal :  "  a  most  pitiable  cripple,  ship- 
wrecked in  all  save  the  noble  intelligence," 
who  "  hobbled  away  from  the  hearing  of  a 
Beethoven  symphony  exclaiming,  'I  have 
heard  that  music  for  the  fiftieth  time;  you 
see  what  I  am ;  yet  with  this  in  my  soul  I  go 
down  Regent  Street  a  god ! '  " 

After  all,  what  is  this  strange  give-and- 
take  in  the  world  of  art  but  a  fair  symbol  of 
the  larger  give-and-take  of  life  ?  "  Our  souls," 
[66] 


THE   CREATIVE   LISTENER 

said  Balzac,  in  Eugenie  Grandet,  "  live  by 
giving  and  receiving ;  we  have  need  of  an- 
other soul.  Whatever  it  gives  us  we  make 
our  own,  and  give  back  again  in  overflowing 
measure.  This  is  as  vitally  necessary  for  our 
inner  life  as  breathing  for  our  corporeal  ex- 
istence." Nay,  more;  creative  listening  is  a 
sort  of  prayer.  When  we  really  pray,  do  we 
not  strive  to  do  to  the  Infinite  Harmonist 
something  very  like  that  which  the  creative 
listener  does  to  the  musician?  Who  does  not 
believe  that  his  own  prayers,  in  some  myste- 
rious way,  actually  help  to  compass  their  ful- 
fillment? And  have  we  not  from  childhood 
up  been  prepared  to  trust  that  "  on  the 
heaven-side  bank  of  the  River  of  Death  "  the 
functions  of  prayer  and  of  creative  listening 
are  fused  forever  in  one  ? 

Perhaps  it  is  not  yet  clear  why  any  mere 
listener  to  music  should  be  dignified  by  the 
royal  title  of  "  creative."  Now,  just  as  the 
supremely  creative  thing  about  the  great  com- 
poser is  his  ability  to  store  up  emotion  on 
[67] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

music-paper,  and  the  creative  thing  ahout  the 
great  player  is  his  ability  to  liberate  this  emo- 
tion by  mingling  with  it  his  own,  —  so  the 
creative  thing  about  the  great  listener  is  his 
ability  to  saturate  this  complex  of  emotion 
with  his  own  and  return  it  to  the  player  in 
the  form  of  heightened  inspiration.  At  each 
step  of  this  process  the  music  is  born  again. 

Who  will  deny  that  Svengali  is  at  least  as 
creative  as  the  lady  to  whom  he  listens? 

"  The  potential  poet  or  painter,"  says  our 
Finlander  in  speaking  of  the  appreciator  of 
art,  "  whose  embryo  work  is  bound  to  remain 
forever  a  fact  only  of  his  own  experience  .  .  . 
is  not  aware  that  he  is  composing  a  poem  or 
a  picture  for  himself  as  spectator  or  audience. 
Instinctively,  however,  he  pursues  ...  an  end 
which  is  essentially  similar  to  that  of  the  act- 
ually creating  artist.  In  both  these  cases  .  .  . 
the  creative  activity  aims  at  making  an  emo- 
tional mood  independent  of  the  accidental  and 
individual  conditions  under  which  it  origin- 
ally appeared." 

[68] 


THE  CREATIVE  LISTENER 

All  this,  applied  to  a  'cello  recital,  for  in- 
stance, would  mean  that  the  creative  listener 
is  unconsciously  endeavoring  with  might  and 
main  to  help  the  'cellist  overcome  his  spiritual 
handicap  in  being  more  or  less  preoccupied 
with  his  fingers,  his  wrist,  and  his  erratic  ac- 
companist, with  the  beams  in  the  ceiling  that 
spoil  the  acoustics,  or  the  perfidious  usher 
who  opens  the  door  and  lets  in  an  icy  draft 
upon  his  sensitive-plant  of  an  instrument.  Now 
if  it  were  not  for  the  help  of  the  creative  list- 
ener the  'cellist  could  never  transcend  these 
conditions ;  and  then  where  would  the  mu- 
sic be  ? 

This  in  effect  is  what  Professor  Hirn  means 
by  his  learned  jargon.  And  I  hope  that  our 
aesthetic  scramble,  now  happily  ended,  will 
make  it  clear  why  a  concert-hall  full  of  cre- 
ative listeners  is  such  a  wonderful  place. 
Instead  of  a  herd  of  inert  humanity  pas- 
sively acquiescing  in  a  single  paltry  act  of 
attempted  creation  on  the  stage,  you  find  a 
place  fairly  alive  with  acts  of  creation.  You 
[69  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

hardly  recognize  that  piece  as  the  battered  old 
Chopin  nocturne  you  have  known  so  long  : 
for  the  good  angel  of  every  true  listener  pre- 
sent is  taking  it  and  actually  remoulding  it 
nearer  to  the  heart's  desire.  Hush !  Can  you 
not  feel  the  atmosphere  of  those  gracious 
presences?  Can  you  not  well-nigh  catch  the 
eager  rustle  of  myriad  mysterious  wings  ? 

It  is  a  still  more  wonderful  adventure  to 
be  so  palpably  the  sole  creative  listener  in 
the  audience  that  all  four  members  of  the 
string  quartet  look  to  you  alone  to  uphold 
the  public's  end  of  the  spiritual  tennis  game. 
And  what  a  lark  to  be  so  en  rapport  with 
them  as  to  share  even  their  musical  jokes 
and  humorous  by-play,  undreamed-of  by  the 
rest ;  to  have  them  take  you  into  their  tonal 
confidence  as  to  what  they  really  think  of 
the  music  they  are  playing ;  and  with  them 
gravely  explode  with  hidden  hilarity  when 
the  pompous  virtuoso  comes  in  and,  by  way  of 
doing  the  piano  part  of  his  own  quintet,  makes 
the  unhappy  instrument  commit  hari-kari! 
[  70] 


THE  CREATIVE  LISTENER 

The  splendid  thing  about  being  a  creative 
listener  is  that  you  alone  can  provide  the  ne- 
cessary correlative  for  every  great  effect  in  the 
art.  A  musical  Ulysses,  you  are  a  part  of  all 
that  you  have  heard. 

"  But,"  some  one  will  object,  "why  lay  such 
stress  on  the  audience  ?  Surely  the  player 
carries  his  own  best  listeners  about  with  him 
in  his  two  ears." 

A  plausible  fallacy.  Few,  in  fact,  are  in  a 
worse  position  to  hear  music  than  the  one 
who  makes  it.  He  is  under  the  malign  spell 
of  proximity,  like  the  character  in  The  Wed- 
ding Feast,  or  like  some  scene-painter  who  is 
unable  to  get  farther  away  than  the  wings 
for  a  view  of  his  masterpiece.  For  the  instru- 
mentalist is  too  near  his  instrument  to  catch 
more  than  hints  of  the  tone-color  that  en- 
chants his  audience. 

And  his  handicap  is  more  than  acoustic. 

Considerations    of    technic   or   ensemble,    a 

frayed  string,  a  squeaking  pedal,   or  some 

bored  philistine  fidgeting  in  the  front  row, 

[71  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

are  usually  there  to  bind  him  to  earth  with 
leaden  chains.  However  passionately  he  may 
long  to 

"  fling  the  dust  aside 
And  naked  on  the  air  of  heaven  ride  "  — 

he  is  allowed  hut  few  breaths  of  the  upper 

ether. 

How  different  is  the  practical  atmosphere 

of  the  concert  stage  from  that  down  below 

in  the  quiet  audience,  where  music  isolates 

pure  spirits  and  convinces  them  of  their  high 

destiny,  fulfilling  in  earnest  the  poet's  light 

prayer : — 

"  Ye  gods  annihilate  both  time  and  space." 

The  player,  like  a  harassed  hostess,  "is  care- 
ful and  troubled  about  many  things " ;  the 
creative  listener  has  chosen  the  better  part. 
And  if  music  is  to  prove  itself  indeed  the  most 
spiritual  of  the  arts,  it  must  do  so  by  aid  of 
the  audience. 

One  naturally  supposes  that  the  symphony 
orchestra  needs  less  help  from  the  public  than 
does  the  quartet,  say,  or  the  soloist,  —  that 
[  72] 


THE  CREATIVE  LISTENER 

five  score  musicians  working  together  can  gen- 
erate any  amount  of  the  necessary  atmosphere. 

Far  from  it !  Notoriously  dependent  on 
financial  support,  the  orchestra  is  yet  more 
dependent  on  that  spiritual  fee  which  no  box- 
office  ever  demanded  and  no  creative  listener 
ever  left  unpaid. 

Acoustically  the  orchestral  player  is  at  more 
of  a  disadvantage  than  any  other  musician. 
It  depends  somewhat  on  where  he  sits  whether 
the  tone-poem  entitled,  let  us  say,  "  The  Af- 
ternoon Sunbath  of  a  Mountain  Faun,"  re- 
solves itself  for  him  into  one  prolonged  growl 
of  double-bass  thunder  that  seems  to  loosen 
his  very  vertebrae,  or  a  series  of  lightning 
flashes  from  the  piccolo,  like  so  many  vigor- 
ous jabs  of  a  hypodermic  needle. 

Though  I  first  played  in  The  Messiah  at 
an  age  when  music  was  becoming  dearer  al- 
most to  me  than  food  and  raiment,  I  was 
forced  to  admit  that  my  chief  impression  of 
the  performance  was  of  an  adult  trombone 
announcing  directly  into  one  ear,  "  He  is  the-e 
[73] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

King  of  Glo-ree !"  while,  into  the  other,  a  large 
brass  trumpet  annotated  this  proposition  with 
exhaustive  foot-notes. 

In  a  situation  like  this  the  player  is  in  the 
trough  of  a  high  sea,  and  hears  only  the 
breaking  of  the  crest  on  either  hand.  Or 
rather,  he  is  somewhat  in  the  position  of  our 
wretched  scene-painter,  supposing  he  were 
driven  out  of  the  wings  and  forced  to  con- 
template his  canvas  from  the  lumber-room  in 
the  rear  of  the  stage. 

Nowhere,  then,  is  the  creative  listener  more 
needed  than  at  the  symphony.  For,  in  large 
measure,  both  player  and  conductor  must  feel 
the  spiritual  force  of  the  music  by  indirec- 
tion,—  through  its  effect  on  their  audience. 

In  playing  the  'cello  the  most  delightful 
adventures  have  befallen  me  in  connection 
with  creative  listeners.  Two  of  my  closest 
friends  originally  began  the.  friendship  by 
gleaming  out  from  amid  a  crooked  and  per- 
verse audience  and  helping  me  so  potently 
as  to  turn  what  threatened  to  be  a  nightmare 
[74] 


THE  CREATIVE  LISTENER 

into  something  as  pleasant  as  a  dream  of 
King  Cole's  enchanted  castle.  By  the  end  of 
each  of  those  performances  we  had  advanced 
too  far  in  intimacy  ever  to  turn  back. 

And  better  players  can  tell  you  the  same 
sort  of  thing  ad  infinitum.  One  of  the  Knei- 
sel  Quartet  assures  me  that  he  never  begins 
playing  in  public  without  looking  about  for 
the  most  creative  listeners  there.  He  says  that 
he  can  always  recognize  them  at  sight  by  a 
little  sixth  sense  of  his  own.  And  then  he 
plays  all  the  evening  to  no  one  else. 

Nay,  gentle  amateur  of  listening,  it  is  more 
than  possible  that  Carreno  or  Elman,  Gerardy 
or  Wullner,  Zeisler  or  Spiering  or  Schumann- 
Heinck  may  at  this  very  moment  be  cherish- 
ing the  picture  of  your  glowing  features  and 
mysteriously  revealed  personality  in  one  of 
those  inner  photograph-albums  which  are  re- 
served exclusively  for  their  dearest,  most  cre- 
ative stranger-friends. 

And,  though  you  might  never  dream  it 
from  their  stolid  shoulders,  the  greatest  or- 
[75] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

chestral  conductors  count  on  you  as  implicitly 
as  does  any  mere  soloist.  They  have  appre- 
ciative eyes  for  you  in  the  backs  of  their 
heads.  Hear  the  beloved  father  of  the  Amer- 
ican orchestra  on  this  point :  "  Very  few 
people/'  said  Theodore  Thomas,  "have  any 
idea  how  intelligent  and  discriminating  list- 
eners react  upon  the  performers.  A  stupid 
audience  kills  the  orchestra  dead  in  five  min- 
utes, as  water  kills  fire,  whereas  an  intelligent 
and  responsive  audience  will  stimulate  the 
musicians  at  once  to  their  best  efforts." 

My  theory  is  that  an  exclusive,  contemptu- 
ous, undemocratic  spirit  is  a  sorry  defect  in 
any  musician.  Of  two  otherwise  equal  con- 
ductors or  players,  the  more  democratic  will 
be  the  better  one  every  time.  Anybody  who 
calls  his  public  "  the  rabble,"  and  proudly 
insulates  himself,  will  always  labor  under  a 
serious  disadvantage.  One  feels  the  chill  in 

o 

such  a  man's  work.  It  is  eccentric,  abnor- 
mal, devoid  of  that  human,  emotional  quality 
which  is  the  soul  of  art. 

[76] 


THE  CREATIVE  LISTENER 

After  hearing  a  certain  famous  self-centred 
European  conduct  in  New  York  not  long 
ago,  I  was  not  surprised  when  he  remarked 
to  me  afterwards  with  a  contemptuous  grim- 
ace, "  The  masses  —  they  are  stupid  !  What 
do  they  care  or  understand  ?  When  I  play  or 
conduct  I  try  to  forget  all  about  the  audience 
absolutely." 

No  wonder  he  found  them  stupid  !  This 
exclusive  attitude  is  the  surest  means  of  put- 
ting listeners  on  the  offensive,  and  of  quench- 
ing every  creative  spark  that  they  may  have 
brought  as  their  offering. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  Thomas,  with 
far  more  provocation,  never  called  his  audi- 
ences names,  one  reason  why  he  left  them  so 
much  less  stupid  than  he  found  them.  For 
he  valued  and  intensively  cultivated  in  his 
public  every  vestige  of  the  creative  instinct. 

Strange  as  it  may  sound,  I  believe  that  one 
proof  of  the  rapid  development  of  the  art  of 
listening  among  us  may  be  seen  in  the  popular- 
ity of  the  mechanical  piano.  For  the  practice 
[  77  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

of  manipulating  the  stops  of  this  musical  make- 
shift is  perhaps  as  satisfactory  an  outlet,  and 
even  training,  for  the  listener's  creative  fac- 
ulty as  he  could  find  in  radiating  inspiration 
to  the  less  creative  kinds  of  singer  and  player. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  existence  of  the 
art  we  are  discussing  is  the  surest  guarantee 
that  music  will  never  be  entirely  mechanized. 
Even  the  most  perfect  possible  reproductions 
of  the  efforts  of  the  great  interpreters  will 
never  supplant  the  actual  hand  or  throat  pro- 
duct, because  the  true  listener  will  always  in- 
sist on  polling  his  own  vote  in  the  democracy 
of  Tone.  He  will  never  consent  to  take  his 
fingers  from  the  reins  of  government.  And 
thus,  he  will  never  allow  the  human  perform- 
ance to  be  replaced  by  the  mechanical ;  be- 
cause the  wildest  imagination  cannot  con- 
ceive of  a  machine  that  will  reproduce  the 
spirit  of  some  past  performance  of  Paderew- 
ski  and  still  be  sensitive  to  the  telepathic  in- 
fluence of  its  present  audience.  It  is  not 
enough  for  the  creative  listener  to  hear  how 
[78] 


THE  CREATIVE   LISTENER 

distant  places,  persons,  and  times  influenced 
the  Polish  wizard.  He  resents  anything  that 
shuts  him  out  from  making  himself  an  or- 
ganic part  of  that  music,  and  from  actually 
influencing  the  spiritual  quality  of  every  note 
as  Paderewski  makes  it.  He  resents  any 
machine  that  proposes  to  substitute  for  a 
thousand  different  playings  of  the  Moonlight 
Sonata  a  single  petrified,  statue-like  thing, 
so  irrevocably  finished  that  we  may  appre- 
ciate it  until  we  break  our  hearts,  yet  never 
alter  it  by  a  grain. 

No!  One  of  the  most  precious  parts  of 
music  is  its  capacity  for  infinite  reincarna- 
tion, and  the  blessed  opportunity  this  offers 
the  listener  for  self-expression.  This  part  will 
never  be  relinquished. 


IV 

THE  DESTRUCTIVE  LISTENER 

There  is  nothing  that  our  music  needs  more 
than  creative  listening,  unless  it  be  apostles 
of  creative  listening. 

The  best  musical  missionary  I  ever  knew 
was  Walthers.  And  as  the  story  of  his  labors 
is  so  illuminating,  perhaps  I  would  better  tell 
how  he  began  that  movement  for  the  con- 
version of  the  musically  lost,  which  has  flour- 
ished so  vigorously  ever  since. 

In  the  old  days  of  the  Thomas  Orchestra, 
every  Friday  afternoon  would  find  Walthers 
in  the  parquet  of  the  Auditorium.  At  first,  he 
was  of  all  men  most  miserable,  for  his  crea- 
tive listening  was  always  being  disturbed  by 
the  musical  impiety  about  him.  For  a  time 
he  was  fiercely  intolerant  of  this  sort  of  thing, 
which  he  called  destructive  listening.  His 
glare  was  superb  and  his  hiss  was  of  such  a 
[80] 


THE  DESTRUCTIVE  LISTENER 

dismaying  sibilance  as  to  silence  even  the 
most  abandoned  whisperers,  for  a  few  meas- 
ures. Now  he  and  they  would  sit  rigid  in  a 
sort  of  armed  truce ;  now  Walthers  would 
again  be  cutting  single-mouthed  a  wide  swath 
of  silence  about  him. 

But  common  sense  foretold  that  things 
could  not  continue  thus.  And  he  began  to 
make  a  study  of  the  situation.  Experience 
had  already  furnished  him  abundant  data 
wherewith  to  work.  As  an  accomplished  am- 
ateur violinist  he  had  learned,  painfully,  what 
the  destructive  listener  means  to  the  player. 
He  knew  that  he  who  is  not  for  the  fiddler  is 
against  him,  —  is  so  much  dead  weight  upon 
his  bow-arm.  He  knew  that  the  fiddler  must 
either  drag  the  other  up  or  be  dragged  down  ; 
and  he  used  to  say  that  the  latter  alternative 
was  wont  to  distress  him  even  more  than  he 
had  been  distressed  in  youth  when  compelled 
to  stammer  "  Excelsior  "  to  derisive  mates 
and  a  frostily  critical  schoolma'am.  That 
was  pure  fun  compared  with  trying  Orphean 
[81  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

miracles  on  human  stocks  and  stones.  He 
knew  that  one  nodding  head  or  fishy  eye  in 
the  audience  can  sometimes  reduce  the  player 
to  depths  wherefrom  a  whole  row  of  eager, 
telepathic,  creative  listeners  can  scarcely  res- 
cue him. 

The  fact  that  destructive  listening  might 
even  kindle  murderous  rage  in  the  breast  of 
the  player  was  proved,  Walthers  held,  by  the 
very  earliest  recorded  chapters  of  the  history 
of  music.  "  We  players  know  perfectly  well," 
he  used  to  say,  "  why  Hermes  cut  off  Ar- 
gus's head.  The  Latin  poets  want  us  to  be- 
lieve it  was  because  Argus  insisted  on  both- 
ering Io.  But  we  know  better.  The  real 
reason  was  that  the  brute  had  the  impudence 
to  take  a  nap  during  Hermes's  —  no  doubt 
very  musical  —  flute  solo.  And,"  he  would 
add,  "  if  the  ancient  musicians  were  half 
as  touchy  as  the  profession  is  to-day,  then 
Apollo  skinned  Marsyas  simply  because  the 
fool  was  so  un appreciative  of  his  work  on 
the  lyre.  Hermes  and  Apollo  did  perfectly 
[82] 


THE  DESTRUCTIVE  LISTENER 

right,  too.  Down,  I  say,  with  all  destructive 
listeners ! " 

Walthers  grew  convinced  that  the  de- 
structive listener  has  quite  as  pernicious  an 
effect  upon  his  fellow  hearer  as  upon  the 
music-maker ;  that  he  permeates  the  musical 
atmosphere  somewhat  as  a  drop  of  ink  per- 
meates a  goblet  of  wine.  But  finding  that  mil- 
itant methods  only  made  matters  worse  about 
him  in  the  Auditorium,  he  resolved  to  try  the 
arts  of  peace,  and  deliberately  scraped  ac- 
quaintance with  the  most  destructive  listen- 
ers in  the  vicinity.  Before  long  he  made  the 
important  discovery  that  most  of  these  were 
simply  undeveloped  listeners  and,  under  the 
proper  course  of  treatment,  were  capable  of 
growing  surprisingly  creative.  Thereupon, 
Walthers  decided  to  convert  as  much  of  the 
Auditorium  as  he  could. 

He  began  with  the  sort  of  woman  who  at- 
tends concerts  simply  because  it  is  the  fash- 
ionable thing  to  do,  and  who  exhibits  her 
exquisite  culture  to  the  world  by  means  of 
[83] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

a  voluptuously  metronomic  hat-plume,  which 
comes  to  grief,  however,  at  every  change  in 
the  time. 

"Walthers  found  that  this  lady's  one  genuine 
artistic  interest  was  sculpture.  He  promptly 
loaned  her  a  book  which  thrilled  her  with  the 
disclosure  that  the  music  she  had  supposed  to 
be  an  amorphous  hodge-podge  of  notes  was 
actually  moulded  into  as  fascinating  forms  as 
ever  was  clay  or  bronze. 

A  young  violin  student  sat  near  by  who 
never  heard  anything  at  a  concert  but  fiddle 
technic.  He  used  to  finger  out  sympatheti- 
cally on  his  right  coat-sleeve  every  simple  pas- 
sage and  writhe  in  envy  during  every  diffi- 
cult one.  Beauties  of  tone  or  nuance  or 
construction  did  not  exist  for  him.  Every 
emotional  appeal  flew  over  his  head.  Music 
held  nothing  for  him  but  finger-twiddling. 

Walthers  began  by  showing  him  broad, 
human  horizons.  He  introduced  the  lad  to 
Schubert,  the  poverty-stricken  teacher,  pour- 
ing out  his  deathless  melodies  on  the  back  of 
[84] 


THE  DESTRUCTIVE  LISTENER 

a  supper-card  in  a  tavern.  He  made  him  know 
what  a  droll,  sunshiny  old  chap  Papa  Haydn 
was ;  let  him  see  something  of  the  hopeless 
passion  that  went  to  the  making  of  Tristan ; 
and  drew  him  word-pictures  of  poor,  cold, 
deaf  Beethoven,  working  in  the  room  where 
his  wretched  brother  would  not  even  allow 
him  a  fire,  —  or  on  the  stage,  being  turned 
around  to  see  the  people  applauding  his  last 
great  symphony. 

The  musical  lotus-eaters  next  claimed  Wal- 
thers's  attention.  These  are  the  sort  that 
never  really  live  at  a  concert,  but  only  exist 
there,  as  Arnold  Bennett  puts  it,  "in  a  state 
of  beatific  coma,  like  a  baby  gazing  at  a 
bright  object."  Or,  if  they  are  more  active 
than  this,  they  merely  know,  with  Elia,  what 
it  is  to  "lie  stretched  upon  a  rack  of  roses 
...  to  pile  sugar  upon  honey,  and  honey 
upon  sugar,  to  an  interminable  . . .  sweetness." 
Year  in  and  year  out  they  will  take  their  sym- 
phony as  regularly  as  their  bath  without  com- 
ing the  least  bit  nearer  to  knowing  Johann 
[85  ] 


THE   MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

Strauss  from  his  large  namesake  Richard,  or 
a  trombone  from  a  shin-bone. 

Walthers  found  some  of  these  people  actu- 
ally afraid  of  learning  anything  about  music 
for  fear  the  knowledge  would  make  dry-as- 
dusts  of  them.  And  then  he  would  spout 
them  passages  from  Souriau's  U  Imagination 
de  V Artiste,  or  quote  Krehbiel  where  he 
says,  "  Real  appreciation  ...  is  conditioned 
upon  intelligent  hearing.  The  higher  the  in- 
telligence, the  keener  will  be  the  enjoyment, 
if  the  former  be  directed  to  the  spiritual  side 
as  well  as  the  material."  But  more  often  he 
would  scold  the  lotus-eater.  "Oh,  you  don't 
understand  music,  eh?"  he  would  growl, 
"you  just  enjoy  it?  Now,  would  you  have 
the  face  to  say  that  so  smugly  about  any 
other  element  of  human  culture  that  you  'd 
paid  half  as  much  attention  to  ?  Do  you  real- 
ize that  a  few  days'  pleasant  browsing  in  any 
library  would  make  you  decently  intelligent 
about  music?"  Then  he  would  adopt  a  milder 
tone  and  tell  them  about  philanthropists  like 
[86] 


THE  DESTRUCTIVE  LISTENER 

Dickinson  and  Krehbiel,  Mason,  and  Hen- 
derson,1 who  have  compressed  musical  cul- 
ture into  tabloid  form.  For  he  knew  that  one 
taste  of  a  tabloid  is  often  enough  to  begin 
the  reformation  of  the  most  abandoned. 

Walthers's  success  with  people  of  these 
types  was  extraordinary.  He  used  to  say  that 
almost  any  destructive  listener  may  be  con- 
verted if  you  can  get  him  to  do  four  things: 
namely,  to  hear  none  but  worth-while  music  ; 
to  take  tabloids  (which  will  furnish  him  the 
essentials  of  form,  musical  aesthetics,  instru- 
mentation, history,  and  biography) ;  to  inter- 
est himself  in  the  human  side  of  the  players; 
and  to  cultivate  his  musical  memory. 

With  some  kinds  of  destructive  listeners, 
however,  Walthers  never  had  the  least  suc- 
cess: with  those  who,  in  the  Meredithean 
phrase,  "  fiddle  harmonics  on  the  strings  of 

1  Edward  Dickinson,  The  Education  of  a  Music  Lover; 
Henry  E.  Krehbiel,  How  to  Listen  to  Music;  Daniel  Greg- 
ory Mason,  The  Appreciation  of  Music;  William  J.  Hen- 
derson, What  is  Good  Music  f 

[87  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

sensualism,"  with  musical  prigs,  and  pedants; 
and  with  those  rank  sentimentalists  who  in- 
sist on  translating  the  infinite  art  of  the  com- 
poser into  the  finite  art  of  the  poetaster,  tag- 
ging every  musical  number  with  a  programme 
and  explaining  it  either  as  "a  song  of  undy- 
ing love,"  or  as  "  the  struggle  of  a  mighty 
spirit.  "  "  Confirmed  program matists  like 
these,"  he  used  to  declare,  "  are  even  worse 
bores  and  nuisances  than  confirmed  epigram- 
matists,—  and  that  is  saying  a  good  deal." 
Then  there  were  the  intellectual  debauchees 
who  take  music  instead  of  whiskey  to  stimu- 
late cerebration.  Finally  came  people  like  the 
two  matinee  girls  who  sat  behind  Walthers. 
Month  after  month  they  continued  to  whisper 
and  giggle  and  crunch  explosive  taffy,  in  the 
same  soft  passages,  in  the  same  zestful  way. 
Hissing  only  lent  flavor  to  their  outrageous 
repast.  They  appeared  to  gloat  over  the 
ability  to  give  the  listener  more  of  pain  than 
a  hundred  musicians  could  give  him  of  pleas- 
ure. They  took  a  morbid  delight  in  impal- 
[88] 


THE  DESTRUCTIVE  LISTENER 

ing  those  curious  worms  of  music-lovers  on 
their  vocal  hat-pins  to  see  them  wriggle. 

This  sort  of  environment  it  was  that  finally 
drove  Walthers  into  his  memorable  experi- 
ment. 


V 

THE  EAR  CLUB 

The  laws  of  crowd  psychology  lose  none  of 
their  force  when  applied  to  the  art  of  listen- 
ing. Just  as  they  can  turn  into  so  many  mur- 
derers men  who,  taken  one  by  one,  would 
not  stroke  an  insect  the  wrong  way,  so  they 
can  take  a  couple  of  destructive  listeners  and 
put  their  heads  together  and  make  the  com- 
bination more  deadly  than  any  four  isolated 
philistines. 

One  day  while  he  was  hopelessly  contem- 
plating the  phenomenon  of  the  hat-pin  girls  it 
occurred  to  Walthers  that  crowd  psychology, 
like  the  proverbial  poor  mule,  would  work 
both  ways;  that  in  listening,  as  in  so  many 
of  the  other  best  experiences  of  life,  it  is  not 
good  for  man  to  be  alone;  that  creative,  as 
well  as  destructive,  listeners  must  be  effect- 
ive inversely  as  the  square  of  their  distance 
[90] 


THE  EAR  CLUB 

apart,  so  that  if  you  add  them  together  you 
do  not  add,  but  multiply,  their  separate  effi- 
ciencies. 

At  once  he  subscribed  for  half  a  dozen  seats 
in  the  balcony  and  began  to  build  about 
himself  a  bulwark  of  his  most  brilliant  con- 
verts. 

This  proved  such  a  delight  that  for  the 
following  season  he  chartered  half  of  Section 
K  and  transformed  it  into  a  veritable  Arcady 
for  music-lovers.  The  sole  admission  require- 
ment was  a  passion  for  the  true  art  of  listen- 
ing. This  was  the  motto  :  — 

"  No  gold  can  buy  you  entrance  there 
But  beggared  Love  may  go  all  bare." 

By  an  instinct  akin  to  that  of  the  homing 
bee,  Walthers  proceeded  to  single  out  crea- 
tive listeners  from  every  part  of  the  audience. 
It  mattered  not  if  they  were  perfect  strangers, 
he  went  straight  to  them.  And  the  fact  that 
they  almost  invariably  met  him  halfway  and 
hailed  the  idea  of  "The  Ear  Club"  with  joy, 
is  simply  one  more  proof  of  how  the  appre- 
[91] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

ciation  of  music,  besides  breaking  down  the 
spiritual  barriers  between  stage  and  audience, 
breaks  them  down  as  well  between  true  ap- 
preciators. 

For,  whether  its  members  are  formally 
known  to  each  other  or  not,  there  are  few 
fraternities  more  intimate  than  fraternities 
of  creative  listeners.  Therefore  The  Ear  Club 
was  almost  as  close  as  nineteenth-century  con- 
ditions allowed  to  that  state  of  things  fore- 
told by  the  prophets  when,  aeons  hence,  brain 
technic  will  be  so  far  advanced  that  the  spoken 
word,  the  furtive  thought  and  lying  and  con- 
spiracy will  be  obsolete,  because  the  secrets 
of  all  hearts  will  be  revealed. 

When  the  supply  of  Auditorium  material 
ran  short,  Walthers  cheerfully  resorted  to  the 
highways  and  hedges  that  his  fraternity  might 
be  full.  And,  as  he  never  would  risk  hurting 
the  feelings  of  proud  poverty,  many  a  watch- 
pawning  enthusiast,  starved  for  symphonies, 
found  in  his  mail  a  season  ticket  for  Section 
K,  the  address  type-written;  and  perhaps 
[92] 


THE  EAR  CLUB 

never  afterward  consciously  beheld  his  bene- 
factor nor  realized  who  the  lean,  austere  man 
in  the  third  row  was,  who  seemed  so  popu- 
lar; nor  that  he  himself  had  been  a  member 
of  that  epoch-making  organization,  The  Ear 
Club. 

Earnest  neophytes  were  sometimes  admit- 
ted on  probation,  but  the  line  was  drawn  ab- 
solutely against  any  one  who  even  faintly 
suggested  kinship  with  the  three  most  de- 
structive classes  of  listeners :  grammarians, 
gluttons,  and  ghosts.  These  were  denned 
respectively  as:  "all  head  and  no  heart,"  "all 
heart  and  no  head,"  and  "no  head  and  no 
heart." 

This  does  not  mean,  of  course,  that  all  the 
members  of  The  Ear  Club  were  perfected  in 
their  creativeness.  In  those  old  days  the  per- 
fect listener —  that  exquisite  balance  of  emo- 
tion and  intellect  which  so  many  of  us  think 
of  only  in  terms  of  the  first  person  —  was  as 
hard  to  run  to  earth  as  a  Platonic  idea.  Cer- 
tainly there  were  no  persons  precisely  an- 
[93  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

swering  to  this  description  in  Section  K, 
for  even  the  leading  spirits  there  were  far 
from  being  such  accomplished  listeners  as 
the  delighted  members  of  the  Thomas  Or- 
chestra so  often  find  to-day  glowing  in  the 
heart  of  their  audience  like  an  Australian 
opal  burning  deep  within  its  dull,  brown  ma- 
trix. 

It  was  wonderful  to  see  how  the  Club's  in- 
fluence spread.  In  a  few  brief  months  Sec- 
tions J  and  L  began  to  be  honeycombed  with 
creativeness,  and  small  hives  even  began  to 
appear  in  the  desert  of  the  parquet.  It  was 
no  time  at  all  before  Flogan,  K's  eager 
young  usher,  had  counterbalanced  his  great 
heart  for  music  by  gathering  from  the  mem- 
bers' lips  and  libraries  an  astounding  mass 
of  erudition.  Word  was  passed  around  the 
building  that  the  encyclopaedic  Flogan  found 
it  even  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive. 
The  public  soon  learned  when  in  doubt  to 
consult  him,  and  during  the  intermission  he 
would  face  a  veritable  fusillade  of  questions. 
[94] 


THE  EAR  CLUB 

"Valkyries?  Them's  Am'zons  sorter.  Fly 
on  hossback  and  screech  somethin'  tumble." 

("Telephone's  down  two  flights  and  to 
your  right,  sir.") 

"Batch?  Inventor  o'  this  here  modern 
music." 

("  First  to  your  left,  ma'm.") 

"Bass  clarionet?  Thing  like  one  o'  them 
Dutchman's  pipes.  Party  with  the  brick-col- 
ored beard,  looks  like  he  was  suckin'  instead 
o'  blowin'." 

("  Sorry,  ma'm,  but  the  programmes  is  all 
gone.") 

"Master  Hugues?  One  moment  please." 
And  Flogan  would  rush  down  to  consult 
Walthers  on  the  fuguist  of  Saxe-Gotha. 

The  Ear  Club  had  been  organized  some 
time  before  the  blessed  Friday  when  Wal- 
thers first  brought  me  to  Section  K.  To  my 
last  hour  I  shall  never  forget  the  thrill  of 
that  moment  when  the  master's  baton  de- 
scended out  of  the  tense,  eloquent  silence, 
invoking  the  power  and  the  glory  of  the  fifth 
[95  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

revelation  according  to  Beethoven.  And  then, 
as  I  felt  something  within  me  resounding 
not  only  the  recreation  of  that  music  by 
string  and  reed  and  brazen  throat,  but  vi- 
brating as  well  to  kindred  resonances  from 
the  hearts  about  me,  I  suddenly  saw  the  art 
in  a  wholly  new  guise.  I  began  to  be  dimly 
conscious  of  music  as  a  social  power,  binding 
people  by  myriad  strands  to  all  those  other 
humans  in  space  or  time  who  have  tasted, 
or  are  to  taste,  the  ecstasy  of  creative  listen- 
ing. 

Not  long  before  that  experience  I  had 
skimmed  with  loud  hilarity  Tolstoi's  book 
on  art.  But  that  afternoon  in  Section  K  I 
realized  that  his  pernicious  theory  had  been 
irradiated  by  more  than  one  golden  gleam 
of  truth.  And  on  going  home  I  re-read  and 
assimilated  into  my  creed  these  wonderful 
words :  — 

"  In  this  freeing  of  our  personality  from 
its  separation  and  isolation,  in  this  uniting 
of  it  with  others,  lies  the  chief  characteristic 
[  96] 


THE   EAR  CLUB 

and  the  great  attractive  force  of  art.  .  .  . 
Sometimes  people  who  are  together  are,  if 
not  hostile  to  one  another,  at  least  estranged 
in  mood  and  feeling,  till  .  .  .  music  unites 
them  all  as  by  an  electric  flash,  and,  in  place 
of  their  former  isolation  or  even  enmity,  they 
are  all  conscious  of  union  and  mutual  love. 
Each  is  glad  that  another  feels  what  he  feels ; 
glad  of  the  communion  established,  not  only 
between  him  and  all  present,  but  also  with 
all  now  living  who  will  yet  share  the  same 
impression ;  and  more  than  that,  he  feels  the 
mysterious  gladness  of  a  communion  which, 
reaching  beyond  the  grave,  unites  us  with 
all  men  of  the  past  who  have  been  moved  by 
the  same  feelings,  and  with  all  men  of  the 
future  who  will  yet  be  touched  by  them." 

Then,  in  reaction  from  this  mood,  I  began 
to  fear  that  the  music  I  had  just  heard, 
fraught  as  it  was  with  the  splendor  of  its 
human  revelation,  had  set  me  on  the  heights 
of  experience,  and  that  any  future  concert 
must  bring  descent  and  disappointment. 
[97  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

The  only  thing  doomed  to  disappointment 
proved  to  be  the  fear  itself.  Each  new  ven- 
ture within  the  circle  of  Section  K  seemed 
to  bring  us  a  deepened  sensibility  to  art  and  to 
humanity,  —  and  not  alone  the  humanity  of 
our  fellow  listeners,  but  of  our  friends  in  the 
orchestra  as  well. 

Friends  they  literally  were,  thanks  to  Wal- 
thers  who  had  led  a  pioneer  expedition  be- 
hind the  stage  during  one  historic  intermis- 
sion, to  explore  the  sources  of  the  symphonic 
waters.  It  had  not  been  long  before  The  Ear 
Club  and  the  Orchestra  (which  we  nicknamed 
the  Hand  and  Mouth,  —  or  the  Hand  to  Mouth 
Club)  were  heartily  attached  to  one  another, 
and  the  musicians  came  definitely  to  depend 
for  their  inspiration  on  the  wireless  streams 
of  sympathy  that  kept  flowing  over  the  foot- 
lights from  Walthers  and  his  listeners. 

And  after  The  Ear  Club  had  organized 
an  amateur  orchestra  it  was  the  pleasure  of 
our  new  friends  to  help  us  in  our  modest  con- 
certs, and  to  bear  offerings  of  precious  instru- 
[98] 


THE   EAR  CLUB 

ments  such  as  oboes  and  bassoons  and  French 
horns,  like  so  many  rare  flowers  and  fruits 
for  the  bare  spots  on  our  musical  banquet 
board. 

True  to  its  position  as  the  American  source 
of  collective,  creative  listening,  Chicago  has 
not  been  content  with  pioneer  honors.  It  has 
developed  the  art  so  consistently  as  to  be  the 
first,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  to  attain  an  openly 
acknowledged  state  of  sympathy  between 
player  and  hearer.  Not  long  ago  the  Univer- 
sity Club  invited  the  Thomas  Orchestra  to  a 
banquet  in  their  honor.  The  musicians,  in 
turn,  gave  the  Club  a  private  concert  in  Or- 
chestra Hall.  And  these  events  passed  off 
with  so  much  mutual  satisfaction  as  to  mark 
a  period  in  the  evolution  of  the  art  of  listen- 
ing. 

A  rather  early  period,  however,  as  we  must 
admit.  For  the  hearing  ear  is  still  the  weak- 
est of  American  organs.  Although  we  have 
imported  an  unequalled  body  of  performers, 
and  have  been  hoodwinked  into  allowing  a 
[99] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

few  native  ones  to  struggle  to  eminence  un- 
der various  foreign  disguises;  although  we 
boast  a  couple  of  the  world's  foremost  quar- 
tets and  orchestras,  and  one  of  the  leading 
operas;  although  the  greatest  conductor  of 
his  day  sacrificed  his  life  to  the  task  of 
making  creative  listeners  of  us,  —  Germany 
is  nevertheless  still  justified  in  growling 
"  Schweine!"  at  the  flippant,  noisy  and  re- 
morseless bulk  of  our  audiences.  For  the  Ger- 
man can  listen  every  bit  as  well  as  he  can  play 
(an  even  surer  test  of  musical  culture),  and 
it  is  for  this  reason  that  his  land  remains  the 
Fatherland  of  Tone. 

What  our  musical  development  most  needs 
is  a  few  more  Waltherses,  and  a  few  million 
magic  ear-trumpets. 

The  outlook  is  bright,  however.  For  we 
are  behind  none  in  the  swift  assimilation  of 
new  ideas.  And  the  idea  of  creative  listening 
is  being  swiftly  assimilated.  To-day  for  every 
member  of  the  original  Ear  Club  there  are  a 
hundred  apostles  of  listening  spreading  from 
[100] 


THE   EAR   CLUB 

sea  to  sea  the  gospel  that  the  public  must 
make  half  of  every  masterpiece ;  —  and  or- 
ganizing Ear  Clubs,  we  trust,  wherever  Bee- 
thoven and  Brahms  and  Wagner  unloose 
their  mighty  spells. 

It  would  not  surprise  me  if,  before  long, 
a  Section  K  came  to  be  considered  a  more 
urgent  necessity  for  every  concert  hall  than 
ushers  or  steam  heat,  or  even  having  the 
piano  in  approximate  tune. 

And  therefrom  it  is  but  a  single  short  and 
perfectly  logical  step  to  the  rise  of  the  pro- 
fessional listener. 

There  will  be  specialists.  Some  will  devote 
themselves  exclusively  to  neutralizing  the  de- 
structive atmosphere  exhaled  by  that  pathetic 
victim  of  musical  indigestion,  the  average, 
overworked  newspaper  critic. 

In  like  manner,  just  as  new  and  benign 
insects  are  constantly  being  found  to  gobble 
up  the  various  pests  that  embitter  the  farm- 
er's lot,  —  a  special  breed  of  creative  listen- 
ers will  eventually  be  evolved  to  make  of  no 
[  101  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

avail  the   efforts  of   each  agent  of  musical 
destruction. 

One  of  these  days  every  performer  will 
seek  out,  and  provide  himself  with,  his  lis- 
tening affinity  as  surely  as  he  provides  him- 
self to-day  with  resin  or  throat  pastilles ;  and 
the  more  affluent  virtuosi  will  take  along  a 
special  train  load  of  affinities  to  sit  in  the 
front  row  at  Kalamazoo  and  Oshkosh. 

Finally,  stars  will  arise  in  the  listening 
firmament  who  will  be  able,  like  Svengali,  to 
transform  mediocrity  into  genius,  and  genius 
into  the  super-musician.  And  theirs  will  be 
such  fame  and  fortune  as  falls  to-day  to  the 
sort  of  prima  donna  whose  chief  glory  it  is 
to  break  the  holy  hush  that  follows  a  Schu- 
mann symphony  by  frou-frouing  out  in  front 
of  the  orchestra  and  ogling  the  audience 
with  her  voice. 

Deep  in  their  hearts  for  ever  so  long  mu- 
sicians have  hoped  for  such  consummations 
as  these.    The  only  reason   they  have  not 
given  their  hopes  utterance  is  that  the  dear 
[102  ] 


THE  EAR  CLUB 

fellows  are  such  helpless,  inarticulate  crea- 
tures when  it  comes  to  expressing  any  ideas 
short  of  infinite  ones. 

I  know  any  number  of  them  who  feel  as  I 
do,  namely,  that  it  were  better  to  attempt  a 
Bach  fugue  on  a  penny  whistle  or  The  Mes- 
siah on  a  jew's-harp  than  play  to  any  audi- 
ence which  cannot  boast  at  least  one  trained, 
creative  listener. 


VI 

MUSICAL  INDIGESTION 

On  the  way  home  from  an  evening  of  music 
why  do  we  usually  fall  to  humming  or  whist- 
ling some  melody  from  last  week's  concert? 
The  thing  is  so  unnatural !  It  seems  as  though 
the  normal  mind  ought  to  be  reverberating 
the  strains  to  which  the  body  is  still  sympa- 
thetically vibrating.  Why,  then,  instead  of 
mulling  over  the  two  symphonies,  the  three 
solos  and  the  overture  to  which  our  ear- 
drums have  just  ceased  rolling  an  accom- 
paniment, —  do  we  insist  on  trying  so  far 
back  into  the  musical  past  ? 

After  long  puzzling  over  this  problem  I 
have  come  to  believe  that  we  are  led  to  do 
so  by  much  the  same  causes  that  occasionally 
lead  us  after  a  hearty  dinner  to  recall  how 
greedy  we  were  at  luncheon.  Reversion  to 
last  Saturday's  treat  after  the  Tuesday  con- 
[  104] 


MUSICAL  INDIGESTION 

cert  means  that  one's  apparatus  for  the  as- 
similation of  music  is  several  days  behind  in 
its  work. 

The  reason  for  this  state  of  affairs  is  that 
concert  programmes  are  too  long.  During  the 
musical  season  their  size  keeps  concert-goers 
in  perpetual  arrears.  Therefore  most  of  the 
listeners,  performers,  and  critics  who  form 
the  bulk  of  the  musical  world  suffer  from  a 
chronic  complaint.  Christian  Scientists  would 
say  that  these  people  are  "  in  error."  Logi- 
cians would  call  this,  I  suppose,  "  the  error 
of  the  undistributed  middle."  The  rest  of  us 
would  call  it  simply  "  musical  indigestion." 

Most  programmes  to-day  are  vast  museums 
of  Tone :  and  those  who  stay  until  the  last 
note  are  often  as  unpleasantly  affected  as 
was  the  old  missionary  with  the  beauty-loving 
soul  who  spent  five  hours  inspecting  every 
single  statue  and  painting  in  the  Vatican 
and  then  tottered  away  exclaiming  that  art 
was  a  mighty  ungodly  thing  after  all. 

The  scourge  of  musical  indigestion  is  the 
[105  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

worst  enemy  of  the  art  of  creative  listening. 
One  often  notices  how  splendidly  creative  an 
audience  is  for  the  first  hour  and  how  rapidly 
thereafter  it  grows  destructive.  The  more 
"  resonant "  the  listeners  are,  the  faster  they 
use  up  their  available  supply  of  creative  en- 
ergy, —  the  sooner  they  reach  that  condition 
to  which  Charles  Lamb's  amateur  organist 
friend  Nov —  used  to  reduce  that  destruct- 
ive listener  after  the  first  few  pieces  of  his 
interminable  programme :  "But  when  this 
master  of  the  spell,"  complained  Lamb,  "  not 
content  to  have  laid  a  soul  prostrate,  goes 
on,  in  his  power,  to  inflict  more  bliss  than 
lies  in  her  capacity  to  receive,  —  impatient  to 
overcome  her  '  earthly '  with  his  '  heavenly,' 
—  still  pouring  in,  for  protracted  hours,  fresh 
waves  and  fresh  from  the  sea  of  sound,  or 
from  that  inexhausted  German  ocean,  above 
which,  in  triumphant  progress,  dolphin- 
seated,  ride  those  Arions  Haydn  and  Mo- 
zart, with  their  attendant  Tritons,  Bach, 
Beethoven,  and  a  countless  tribe,  whom  to 
[106] 


MUSICAL   INDIGESTION 

attempt  to  reckon  up  would  but  plunge  me 
again  in  the  deeps,  —  I  stagger  under  the 
weight  of  harmony,  reeling  to  and  fro  at  my 
wits'  end." 

This  sort  of  thing  was  bad  for  Lamb,  and 
for  his  amateur  friend,  too,  although  in  gen- 
eral the  player  can  with  impunity  partake 
more  heartily  because,  to  some  extent,  his 
music  is  predigested  by  familiarity ;  and  be- 
cause the  fun  and  excitement  of  playing, 
together  with  his  quickened  intellectual  ac- 
tivity, help  along  the  assimilative  processes. 

For  all  that,  long  programmes  often  get 
musicians  into  a  pitiable  condition.  And  I  can 
perfectly  understand  the  action  of  my  pro- 
fessional friend  who  was  walking  home  once 
after  having  played  in  an  orchestra  for  half 
the  night.  Yielding  to  an  overpowering 
wave  of  disgust,  he  stuffed  his  trombone  into 
the  first  drain  he  saw  with  such  vicious  exult- 
ation that  he  had  no  small  difficulty,  the  fol- 
lowing morning,  in  recovering  it. 

The  most  wretched  victim  of  indigestion 
[107  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

is  undoubtedly  the  music  critic  of  the  average 
metropolitan  newspaper.  He  is  treated  on  the 
Strassburg  principle  that  the  more  you  can 
cram  into  a  goose,  the  more  valuable  you 
make  the  goose.  "  Critics,"  declared  the  un- 
compromising Tolstoi,  "have  always  been 
people  less  susceptible  than  other  men  to  the 
contagion  of  art.  For  the  most  part  they  are 
able  writers,  educated  and  clever,  but  with 
their  capacity  of  being  infected  by  art  quite 
perverted  or  atrophied.  And  therefore  their 
writings  have  always  largely  contributed,  and 
still  contribute,  to  the  perversion  of  the  taste 
of  that  public  which  reads  them  and  trusts 
them."  Now  I  think  it  unfair  of  the  rugged 
Russian  to  blame  any  one  under  present  con- 
ditions for  being  a  bad  music  critic.  He 
should  have  emptied  the  vials  of  his  scorn 
exclusively  upon  our  system;  for  it  is  a  thing 
that  can  hardly  fail  to  turn  good  critics  into 
bad.  It  is  a  system  which,  if  adopted  by 
the  wholesale  liquor  houses,  would  compel 
their  tasters  to  consume  at  least  a  gallon  of 
[108] 


MUSICAL  INDIGESTION 

each  variety  before  pronouncing  judgment 
upon  it. 

One  day  at  dinner  little  Anita  had  a  third 
helping  of  beef  before  realizing  with  a  groan 
of  despair  that  there  was  ice-cream  for  des- 
sert. Suddenly  the  despair  vanished.  "The 
capathity  of  the  human  thtomick,"  she  was 
overheard  to  observe  to  herself,  "ith  three 
pinth ;— but  it  '11  thtretch  ! " 

So  will  the  musical  stomach,  —  but  only 
with  the  gravest  consequences.  During  the 
season  a  music  critic  in  New  York  City  aver- 
ages ten  performances  a  week.  Now  a  corre- 
sponding regimen  for  geese  or  tasters  soon 
results  in  pate  defois  gras,  or  delirium  tre- 
mens. The  journalistic  process  produces  at 
the  best  various  forms  of  musical  indigestion, 
with  one  symptom  common  to  all :  —  an 
utter  loathing  for  music  in  any  form. 

All  glory  and  honor  and  laud  be  to  the 
small  group  of  noble  characters  who  by  some 
miracle  manage  to  remain  good  critics  de- 
spite the  disease  which  is  undoubtedly  tear- 
[109] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

ing  away  at  their  vitals.  These  hero-critics 
represent  the  sheer  triumph  of  spirit  over 
flesh.  They  form  a  distinguished  band  of 
Scaevola-like  stoics  who  continue  calmly  de- 
livering their  illuminating  discourses  on  the 
nature  of  the  divine  fire  while  roasting  their 
poor  hands  to  a  crisp  in  a  mundane  one. \ 

But  these  persons  are  all  too  rare.  The 
average  critic  sinks  completely  under  his  af- 
fliction. Happy  is  he  whose  paper  affects  a 
savagely  pessimistic  pose.  He  can  obey  the 
promptings  of  his  agonized  inner  man  by  lay- 
ing about  him  and  sparing  not.  He  is  per- 
mitted to  take  out  his  sufferings  alike  upon 
the  just  and  the  unjust,  and  sincerely  to  por- 
tray all  music  in  the  repellent  terms  which  a 
Strassburg  goose  might  utilize  in  composing 
an  anserine  menu. 

Equally  blessed  is  the  satellite  of  one  of 
those  fashionable  sheets  whose  philosophy  of 
music  criticism  is  pre-occupied  by  the  pro- 
blem, "  wherewithal  have  we  been  clothed  ?  " 
From  his  column  you  somehow  manage  to  re- 
[110] 


MUSICAL   INDIGESTION 

ceive  the  impression  that  the  Rhenish  Sym- 
phony began  with  a  sun-burst  of  incompar- 
able brilliants,  disclosed  an  exceedingly  low- 
cut  scherzo,  a  slow  movement  in  creamy  satin 
with  pink  pipings  overlaid  by  gold  net,  fol- 
lowed by  a  broadly  scored  finale  two,  to  two 
and  one  half,  yards  in  length.  Most  of  the 
critics,  however,  have  a  far  worse  time  of  it. 
Their  plight  is  aggravated  by  the  necessity 
of  working  for  those  roseate  journals  whose 
advertising  policy  dictates  that  at  present 
everything  is  disposed  for  the  best  in  the  best 
of  possible  worlds.  So  these  wretched  men 
are  obliged  to  simulate  perfect  health  and  an 
insatiable  appetite  for  music,  and  to  soft-soap 
all  musicians  alike,  because  the  first  groan 
would  lose  them  their  weekly  honoraria.  But 
they  know  how  to  spare  themselves. 

One  type  slits  his  mouth  into  the  perpetual 
grin  of  The  Man  Who  Laughs.  During  a 
concert  he  tries  to  deafen  his  poor  ears  by 
concentrating:  his  attention  on  some  minor 
point  of  the  performance  and  then  writing 
[  HI] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

about  that  point  the  quaintest,  gayest,  most 
lilting  little  essay  imaginable.  And  next  morn- 
ing the  public  holds  its  sides  and  exclaims 
how  true  it  all  is  and  how  deliciously  The 
Man  does  hit  it  off,  never  realizing  that  it  has 
yet  to  read  a  criticism  of  that  concert.  One 
scarcely  knows  whether  this  method  is  more 
unfair  to  the  public  or  to  the  hapless  tenor  or 
fiddler  or  conductor  who  happens  to  be  the 
first  handy  ear-tab  for  The  Man  Who  Laughs. 

Another  favorite  defense  against  musical 
indigestion  is  for  the  critic  simply  to  relax 
the  muscles  of  his  imagination  and  then  set 
down  on  paper  the  shoes  and  ships  and  seal- 
ing-wax, —  the  anything  and  everything  that 
happens  to  occur  to  him  at  the  moment,  as 
an  interpretation  of  the  "  meaning  "  of  the 
music. 

Let  it  again  be  emphasized  that  the  poor 
critic  is  more  to  be  pitied  than  scorned.  I  as- 
certained this  fact  from  a  season's  personal 
experience  on  a  weekly,  when  I  suffered  the 
fewest  and  lightest  of  the  daily  critic's  pangs. 
[112] 


MUSICAL  INDIGESTION 

The  moral  of  all  this  is  :  let  us  cease  our 
orgies  of  gorging  and  let  us  begin  Fletcher- 
izing.  This  will  relieve  the  situation  at  once 
for  hearers  and  performers.  And  the  choir- 
ing critics  will  lift  up  their  voices  (though  a 
little  out  of  tune,  I  fear,)  and  call  us  blessed. 

We  have  yet,  however,  to  note  the  most 
serious  effect  of  musical  indigestion. 


VII 

THE  AMATEUR  AUTOMUSICIAN 

A   PLEA   FOR    THE    MUSICAL    MEMORY 

"  The  music  in  my  heart  I  bore 
Long  after  it  was  heard  no  more." 

Wordsworth,  The  Solitary  Reaper. 

The  worst  thing  that  musical  indigestion 
accomplishes  is  to  atrophy,  or  at  least  weaken, 
the  musical  memory.  It  is  as  hard  for  the  or- 
dinary man  to  emerge  from  the  ordinary  long 
concert  or  from  a  debauch  of  music-reading 
with  a  clear  idea  of  any  one  thing  that  he 
has  heard  or  played,  as  it  was  for  our  old 
missionary  to  emerge  from  his  extended  rush 
through  the  Vatican  with  a  pellucid  idea  of 
the  Laocoon.  And,  often  repeated,  this  relax- 
ing, confusing  experience  is  apt  to  get  one's 
memory,  or  latent  memory,  into  the  worst  of 
habits. 

Musical  indigestion  is  therefore  the  chief 
[  H4] 


THE  AMATEUR  AUTOMUSICIAN 

enemy  of  the  sport  of  amateur  automusician- 
ship,  the  practice  of  which  is  conditioned  by 
a  sound  musical  memory.  Before  going  any 
farther  it  may  be  as  well  to  state  that  the 
automusician  has  no  necessary  connection 
with  such  automatic  devices  as  the  mechan- 
ical piano.  His  only  mechanical  piano  is 
likely  to  be  inside  his  own  head.  But  this  is 
a  superb  and  indispensable  instrument.  In 
fact,  one  is  almost  tempted  to  paraphrase  Dr. 
van  Dyke's  bon  mot  about  the  two  kinds  of 
biographers,  and  to  say  that  there  are  two 
kinds  of  musicians :  automusicians,  and  aut- 
not-to-musicians.  But  this  would,  after  all,  be 
a  rather  too  extreme  way  of  declaring  that  it 
is  harder  to  be  a  good  musician  without  a 
capacious  memory  than  for  a  rich  man  to  see 
how  the  other  half  lives  through  the  eye  of 
a  hypodermic  needle. 

Little  will  here  be  said  about  the  value  of 

a  musical  memory  to  the  performer,  because 

this  every  one  concedes.  But  not  every  one 

knows  that  much  of  the  player's  most  valu- 

[115] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

able  practice  is  often  done  apart  from  music- 
book  and  even  instrument.  Happy  the  one 
whose  memory  so  outruns  his  fingers  that  he 
may  walk  troutward-bound  through  Maine 
woods  while  slashing  away  at  those  Gordian 
knots  into  which  Reger  has  tied  every  page 
of  his  sonatas.  How  three  and  four  times 
blessed  is  he  to  whom  it  is  granted  to  work 
out  the  cadenza  of  the  Dvorak  'cello  con- 
certo on  the  seam  of  his  trousers  while  the 
elevator  is  stuck  between  floors !  "  We  mu- 
sicians know  "  that  slavery  to  the  printed  note 
is  often  the  final  and  most  fatal  bar  to  spon- 
taneity in  performance.  Even  without  all  this 
anxious  groping  of  the  eye  among  the  ugly 
lines  and  spaces,  the  player's  attention  is  dis- 
tracted quite  enough,  God  wot,  by  the  base, 
physical  properties  of  his  instrument,  by  the 
acoustics,  or  a  cut  finger,  or  "  the  unfit,  con- 
trarious  moods  of  men  "  in  the  audience,  or 
by  a  dozen  things  else.  Woe  unto  him  that  is 
obliged  to  distract  his  attention  still  further 
from  the  real  matter  in  hand  by  squinting  at 
[  H6] 


THE   AMATEUR  AUTOMUSICIAN 

the  rude,  inky  symbols  of  the  composer's 
meaning  through  that  last  straw,  —  vision. 
It  were  better  for  his  spontaneity  that  a  mill- 
stone were  hanged  about  his  neck  and  fitted 
up  with  harp-strings,  and  he  were  allowed  to 
improvise  upon  them,  fancy-free.  Musicians 
feel  the  visual  handicap  so  keenly  that  many 
orchestral  conductors  go  the  extreme  length 
of  committing  their  scores  to  memory,  which 
means  remembering  anywhere  from  twenty- 
five  to  two  hundred  and  fifty  notes  a  sec- 
ond for  an  entire  evening,  to  say  nothing  of 
remembering  which  instrument  plays  which 
note,  and  how  loud  or  soft,  with  what  sort 
of  bowing  or  tonguing  or  drumsticking,  how 
the  phrases  are  to  be  sculptured,  how  fast 
the  composer  intended  each  part,  and  like  de- 
tails. One  stands  agape  at  the  magnitude  of 
such  a  task.  But  a  moment's  reflection  will 
show  that  the  very  magnitude  of  that  other, 
spiritual,  task  involved  in  the  interpretation 
of  an  orchestral  score,  —  supplies  one  set  of 
human  faculties  quite  enough  to  do  without 
[117] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

compelling  the  interpreter  to  be  always  rac- 
ing with  his  eyes  as  well,  and  fumbling  pages 
with  his  fingers.  Yon  Billow,  one  of  the  most 
eminent  conductors  of  his  time,  was  so  im- 
pressed by  the  drawbacks  of  the  printed  page 
that  he  actually  tried  to  make  each  man  in 
the  Meiningen  orchestra  learn  his  own  parts. 
If  he  had  succeeded  I  think  that  he  would  have 
advanced  orchestral  art  a  whole  epoch  or  so. 
But  he  failed.  The  men  simply  could  not  do  it 
because,  I  suspect,  they  were  all  suffering  from 
indigestion  brought  on  by  over-much  reading 
at  sight,  and  interminable  programmes. 

We  are  not  talking  here,  however,  about  re- 
membering music  professionally,  but  for  love. 
Everybody  who  does  the  latter  —  professional 
or  not  —  is  worthy  to  be  called  an  amateur 
automusician.  But  nobody  should  be  thus 
honored  unless  he  loves  music  well  enough 
to  master  it  and  make  it  his  own  for  the  pure 
joy  of  being  able  to  use  it  at  his  will,  morn- 
ing, noon,  or  night,  in  bed,  at  luncheon^  or 
up  in  an  airship. 

[118  ] 


THE  AMATEUR  AUTOMUSICIAN 

As  for  the  listener,  his  memory  is  harmed 
far  more  by  too  much  music  than  the  old 
missionary's  would  have  been  harmed  by  too 
much  sculpture  twice  a  week;  because  the 
full  enjoyment  of  this  art,  more  than  of  any 
other,  needs  the  aid  of  memory.  Except  to 
the  fortunate  few  who  can  appreciate  a  book 
of  printed  notes  as  others  would  a  printed 
novel,  —  music  is  an  evanescent  thing.  It 
does  not  stay  on  forever  like  the  Laocoon  or 
the  Last  Judgment  or  St.  Peter's.  It  does 
not  even  go  on  forever  like  Tennyson's  brook 
(except  perhaps  for  those  who  happen  to  live 
next  door  to  a  conservatory).  It  appears  to 
us  a  transient  gleam,  and  then  — 

"  Like  snow  upon  the  desert's  dusty  face, 
Lighting  a  little  hour  or  two  —  " 

is  gone.  "  And  the  place  thereof  shall  know 
it  no  more,"  —  unless,  indeed,  one  has  had 
the  presence  of  mind  to  treasure  up  a  hand- 
ful or  so  of  the  precious,  white  powder  in  the 
private  cold-storage  plant  we  call  memory. 
[119] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

Thus,  to  speak  of  "  a  melting  melody  "  is, 
alas  !  to  employ  a  double  entendre. 

This  evanescent  quality  makes  it  providen- 
tial that  more  of  music  can  be  remembered 
with  a  given  exertion  of  memory  than  of 
any  other  art,  because  it  uses  its  material  so 
economically.  It  can  take  one  small  form 
of  notes  and  repeat  it  over  and  over  again 
with  various  slight  modifications,  and  finally 
build  a  whole  piece  out  of  it.  How  easy  it 
would  be  to  grow  familiar  with  a  streetscape 
by  Whistler  if  it  were  composed  in  this 
thrifty  musical  fashion  of  nothing  but  the 
same  strip  of  asphalt,  seen  from  various  as- 
pects and  in  a  variety  of  lightings.  "  Repeti- 
tion is  the  fundamental  principle  in  all  musi- 
cal construction,"  writes  Mr.  Krehbiel,  who 
is,  by  the  way,  one  of  the  hero-critics  already 
referred  to.  .  .  .  "While  the  exercise  of  mem- 
ory is  a  most  necessary  activity  in  listening  to 
music,  it  lies  in  music  to  make  that  exercise 
easy.  There  is  repetition  of  motives,  phrases, 
and  periods  in  melody;  repetition  of  melodies 
[  120  ] 


THE  AMATEUR  AUTOMUSICIAN 

in  parts ;  and  repetition  of  parts  in  the  wholes 
of  the  larger  forms."  Beethoven  began  his 
Fifth  Symphony  with  a  motive  of  four  notes 
which  he  described  as  fate  knocking  at  the 
door.  Mr.  Krehbiel  has  shown  how  these  four 
notes,  in  a  general  way,  might  be  said  to 
run,  not  only  through  the  whole  symphony, 
but  also  through  other  compositions  of  the 
same  period.  Thus  it  is  evident  that  when 
one  has  mastered  this  tiny  formula  he  has 
made  more  or  less  his  own  an  entire  cross- 
section  of  the  master's  career. 

This,  then,  is  a  characteristic  tendency  of 
music,  to  sum  itself  up  in  one  small  motive 
much  as  a  nation  sums  itself  up  on  some  na- 
tional holiday  by  flying  its  flag  from  every 
other  window.  By  rare  good  fortune  this 
tendency  harmonizes  beautifully  with  the 
ways  of  the  human  mind.  The  psychologists 
say  that  it  is  natural  for  us  to  simplify  every- 
thing for  ourselves,  —  to  remember  a  certain 
dog,  for  instance,  by  a  white  spot  on  his  left 
ear,  or  a  certain  symphony  by  taking  a  men- 
[121] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

tal  snap-shot  of  its  few  chief  themes.  In 
The  Origins  of  Art,  Yrjo  Hirn  declares  that 
"the  art  of  arranging  great  complexes  of 
intellectual  and  emotional  elements  around 
single  focal  points  "  is  not  only  natural  to  man 
but  may  be  "greatly  developed  by  exercise." 

Music  lends  itself  most  readily  to  this  act 
of  arrangement.  It  requires  a  very  learned 
scholar  to  reconstruct  even  approximately  from 
a  foot  a  marble  Hercules  that  he  has  seen  a 
score  of  times.  But  to  reconstruct  the  Fifth 
Symphony  in  a  rough  and  ready  way  from 
the  Pate  motive  and  a  handful  of  other 
fragments,  is  well  within  the  capacity  of  not 
a  few  amateurs. 

It  is  interesting  to  know  that  the  act  of 
creative  listening  is  a  powerful  aid  to  the 
memory.  The  more  we  give  out  at  a  concert, 
the  more  we  receive  from  it.  And  at  the 
musical  board  there  is  never  any  extra  charge 
for  food  taken  away  from  the  table.  The 
more  we  resound  the  players'  and  composer's 
emotion  back  to  them,  the  more  are  we  aided 
[122] 


THE  AMATEUR  AUTOMUSICIAN 

in  our  unconscious  efforts  to  pack  the  good 
things  into  portable  shape  for  home  consump- 
tion. For  emotion  not  only  makes  the  men- 
tal snapshot  sharper,  but  also  stimulates 
the  summarizing  instinct.  The  more  emotion- 
ally a  large  work  of  art  affects  us,  the  more 
we  are  instinctively  moved  to  sum  it  all  up 
in  a  single  impression  which  shall  re-create 
the  whole  for  us,  just  as  we  carry  away  the 
worth  of  the  Mona  Lisa  in  the  memory  of 
the  haunting  eyes  alone;  and  just  as  the 
whole  mystery  of  life  is  brought  home  to 
the  poet  by  the  flower  in  the  crannied  wall. 
"  The  soul,  of  its  own  unity,"  wrote  Carlyle 
in  Sartor  Hesartus,  "  always  gives  unity  to 
whatever  it  looks  on  with  love." 

To  be  without  a  musical  memory ;  to  be 
forever  obliged  to  depend  on  some  player  or 
even  some  machine  whenever  you  crave 
music,  is  like  being  so  deaf  that  your  only 
communication  with  the  sons  of  men  must 
be  through  the  mediation  of  the  valet  whom 
you  have  hired  simply  on  account  of  his 
[123] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

Bull-of-Bashan  voice.  Or,  if  not  as  desper- 
ately situated  as  this,  at  least  the  musically 
oblivious  stands  to  the  man  with  automusic 
in  his  soul  as  he  who  must  depend  on  corpo- 
ration steam  for  locomotion  stands  to  him 
who  fares  to  the  gay  chug-chug  of  his  own 
motor. 

The  automusician  finds  things  so  conven- 
ient !  He  does  not  have  to  wait  for  the  musi- 
cal train  to  rumble  formally  in  and  bear  him 
away  on  precise  iron  ribbons  only  approxi- 
mately where  he  wants  to  go — or  perhaps, 
indeed,  in  the  opposite  direction — and  with 
all  manner  of  annoyances  like  a  conceited, 
overbearing  conductor,  noisy  fellow-passen- 
gers, blockades,  wrong  signals,  and  so  on.  At 
any  moment  he  may  jump  into  his  own 
crankless  car,  grasp  the  wheel  and  go  exactly 
where  he  lists.  He  may  drive  through  that 
bit  of  sunset-colored  marshland  a  score  of 
times  together,  or  bide  ten  hours  motionless 
on  the  bank  of  the  Rhine  if  it  so  please  him. 
What  is  more,  there  are  no  traps,  no  regula- 
[124  ] 


THE  AMATEUR  AUTOMUSICIAN 

tions  against  speeding  to  offset  this  kind  of 
travel.  He  can  arrive  anywhere  in  no  time 
or  in  any  other  tempo  he  fancies.  In  his  car 
he  is  practically  omnipotent,  —  and  omni- 
scient, too,  if  contrapuntally  inclined.  His  ve- 
hicle is  even  amphibious.  The  whole  world 
stands  open  before  him  where  to  choose,  if 
we  except  certain  neo-romanticist  quicksands 
which  only  the  most  diabolically  perfected 
memory-machines  may  negotiate. 

The  cultivation  of  the  sport  of  automusic 
is  the  only  hope  of  emancipating  the  art  from 
its  present  thraldom  to  performance,  as  the 
invention  of  printing  emancipated  the  drama. 
In  this  reading  age  we  pity  the  illiterate  who 
can  enjoy  Shakespeare  only  by  paying  for  a 
seat  in  a  stuffy  theatre.  And  yet,  until  we 
can  learn  to  revel  in  Beethoven  while  walk- 
ing to  work  in  the  morning,  or  at  least  to 
hold  him  bound  on  our  knees  and  enjoy  him 
before  the  evening  blaze,  we  shall  remain 
as  illiterate  in  music  as  the  theatre-slave  is 
in  poetry.  Ignorance  and  inertia  alone  are 
[125  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

delaying  that  next  great  step  in  the  develop- 
ment of  music, — the  complete  cooperation 
of  stage  and  audience  which  can  only  come 
about  when  the  latter  turns  creative.  For 
memory  is  one  of  the  chief  aids  to  the  de- 
velopment of  creativeness  in  listening,  be- 
cause it  affords  such  unexampled  facilities 
for  the  practice  of  the  art.  A  man  perform- 
ing music  mentally  to  himself  is  the  only 
performer  who  is  his  own  best  hearer. 

"Well,  then," some  reader  may  ask,  "what 
must  I  do  to  be  saved  from  musical  indiges- 
tion and  to  cultivate  a  musical  memory?" 

You  must  do  four  things  to  music  :  read, 
mark,  learn,  and  inwardly  digest  it. 

Read.  Psychologically  speaking  there  are 
two  types  of  persons;  the  "visual,"  and  the 
"  auditory."  The  first  perceive  best  with  their 
eyes;  the  second,  with  their  ears.  If  you  are 
of  the  visual  type  and  have  not  yet  learned 
to  read  music  fluently,  your  greatest  musical 
pleasure  may  be  still  before  you.  How  do 
you  know  that  —  once  you  have  become  mu- 
[  126] 


THE  AMATEUR  AUTOMUSICIAN 

sically  literate — you  may  not  enjoy  reading 
a  volume  of  Brahms  as  much  as  you  now 
enjoy  a  volume  of  Scott  ?  And  as  for  your 
memory,  quite  unwittingly  you  may  have 
possessed  all  this  time  the  musical  retentive- 
ness  of  a  very  Von  Biilow,  except  that  this 
faculty  has  required  of  you,  not  ear- but  eye- 
service.  Perhaps  it  has  only  been  waiting  to 
reveal  itself  until  you  pay  it  the  modest  at- 
tention of  learning  to  read  ;  because  your 
memory  is  so  constructed  that  it  does  not 
recall  how  the  notes  sound  as  easily  as  it  re- 
calls how  they  look  on  the  page.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  you  are  of  the  auditory  type, 
you  should  learn  to  read,  anyway;  because 
nobody,  is  purely  visual  or  auditory.  And 
besides,  you  need  more  than  a  bowing  ac- 
quaintance with  notation  to  be  in  a  position 
properly  to  — 

Mark.  In  the  old  Ear  Club  we  developed  a 

novel  system  of  "marking"  new  melodies  that 

took  our  fancy.  This  amounted  to  a  rude  but 

wonderfully  simple  system  of  musical  short- 

[  127  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

hand.  It  did  not  pretend  to  furnish  a  finished 
record,  but  only  a  prop  to  memory.  There 
was  none  of  the  scientific  looking  parapher- 
nalia about  it  that  makes  even  a  hymnbook 
formidable  to  a  philistine ;  —  no  lines  or 
spaces,  no  clefs,  accidentals  or  tails  to  the 
notes.  Each  note  was  represented  merely  by 
a  pencil  dot.  Its  relative  length  was  crudely 
shown  by  the  horizontal  distance  between  it 
and  the  next  dot,  its  relative  pitch,  by  its  ver- 
tical distance  from  its  neighbors.  The  meas- 
ures might  be  indicated  or  not,  at  pleasure. 
Thus,  if  we  wished  to  help  ourselves  remem- 
ber the  Hymn  to  Joy  from  the  Choral  Sym- 
phony we  would  mark  on  the  margin  of  our 
programmes  something  like  the  following : 


It  is  more  important  than  this  marking  on 
paper,  to  mark  upon  the  tablets  of  your  mind 
such  things  as  how  this  motive  or  that  plays 
hide  and  seek  among  the  bars  with  its  play- 
mates, the  various  instruments.  For  the  mere 
[128] 


THE  AMATEUR   AUTOMUSICIAN 

ability  to  tell  which  instrument  of  them  is 
"it"  is  a  wondrous  aid  to  memory.  To 
do  this  you  must  learn  a  little  about  mu- 
sical form  and  instrumentation.  And  once 
you  have  made  yourself  intelligent  enough 
to  mark,  you  will  be  convinced  that  a  musi- 
cal memory  is  one  of  the  most  delightfully 
entertaining  things  that  the  First  Composer 
ever  invented. 

Learn.  Deliberately  set  your  memory  cer- 
tain musical  tasks  to  be  completed  within  a 
given  time.  And,  as  a  relaxation  from  work, 
play  such  memory  games  as  "  Whist-le  "  which 
is  set  forth  in  the  last  chapter  of  this  book,  or 
that  anomalous  sport  specially  made  for  picnic 
parties  where  you  think  of  some  melody  and 
tap  its  rhythm  on  your  neighbor's  foot  with 
your  own,  scoring  one  if  he  fails  to  guess 
it,  and  losing  the  "serve"  if  he  succeeds. 

Inwardly  digest.  There  is  no  other  thing 

of  beauty  on  earth  that  men  dally  with  more 

and  think  about  less  than  music.   And  this, 

despite  the  fact  that  one  small  liqueur  glassful 

[129] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

of  Chopin  prelude  thoroughly  digested,  made 
bone  of  a  man's  bone  and  flesh  of  his  flesh, 
holds  for  him  infinitely  more  pleasure  and 
profit  than  a  whole  Heidelberg  tun  of  Tone 
to  be  drained  at  a  sitting ;  or — to  change  the 
figure  —  than  a  cloudburst  of  ninety  and  nine 
symphonies  that  slip  his  memory  because  he 
has  put  on  his  mental  oil-skins. 

There  is  something  both  laughable  and 
repellent  in  the  spectacle  of  concert-goers 
sitting  year  after  year  and  swallowing  their 
musical  roast-and-boiled  whole,  as  though  it 
were  quite  predigested  and  required  no  fur- 
ther exertion  from  them ;  —  as  though,  in 
fact,  we  had  already  arrived  at  the  state  of 
things  predicted  by  some  European  savant 
when  science  will  kindly  replace  these  very 
fallible  organs  of  ours  called  stomachs  with 
neat,  hygienic  ones  of  German  silver,  so  that, 
instead  of  solemnly  gathering  thrice  a  day 
about  the  family  board,  we  shall,  when  hun- 
gry, simply  turn  a  German  silver  stop-cock 
in  our  left  wrists  and  insert  a  pellet  of  con- 
[  130] 


THE  AMATEUR  AUTOMUSICIAN 

centrated  turkey-with-cranberry-sauce,  and, 
in  a  single  drop  from  a  medicine  dropper, 
administer  to  ourselves  the  essence  of  a  whole 
quart  of  (de-alcoholized)  Tokay.  When  this 
time  comes  the  sweet  influences  of  the 
Pleiades  will  doubtless  be  captured  and  used 
to  flavor  chewing  gum,  and  phonograph 
records  of  the  bands  of  Orion  will  be  on 
sale  at  all  music  stores,  and  musicians  will 
have  learned  to  save  the  public  time  as  well 
as  energy  by  playing  a  symphony  not  hori- 
zontally but  vertically,  in  one  massive  but 
predigested  chord. 

Under  our  primitive  twentieth-century  con- 
ditions, however,  it  is  well  known  to  the 
learned  that  cake  is  none  the  less  in  need  of 
Fletcherizing  because  it  happens  to  be  angels' 
food,  and  that  the  man  who  supposes  that  he 
has  digested  music  before  devoting  as  much 
time  to  thinking  about  it  as  he  has  devoted 
to  hearing  it,  is  not  only  befooling  himself 
and  ruining  his  digestion,  but  absolutely 
affronting  the  creator  of  this  beauty  and  the 
[131  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

player  who  has  been  re-creating  it,  and  the 
creative  listener  in  the  row  behind  who  has 
been  re-re-creating  it.  The  sooner  people  dis- 
cover that  the  musical  world  was  never  ex- 
empted from  the  primal  curse — or  blessing 
—  of  toil,  the  better.  In  the  sweat  of  thy 
brow  shalt  thou  become  musically  well-bred. 
In  order  to  achieve  this  end  the  first  thing 
to  do  is  to  restrict  yourself  to  hearing  no 
more  music  than  you  are  sure  of  being  able  to 
digest.  Until  programme  makers  have  learned 
to  send  their  audiences  away  still  ready  for 
one  more  course,  it  might  be  a  wise  plan  to 
begin  by  leaving  the  hall  in  the  middle  of 
every  concert  and  taking  yourself  on  a  quiet, 
musical  walk  in  order  to  reconstruct  as  best 
you  may  what  you  have  just  heard.  And  do 
not  forget  to  take  along  your  whistle.  On 
these  digestive  strolls  that  convenient  ama- 
teur instrument  is  at  its  very  best.  A  habit 
like  this  will  guard  you  from  a  glut  of  Tone 
and  insure  you  quite  as  much  time  for  medi- 
tation as  for  listening. 

[  132  ] 


THE   AMATEUR  AUTOMUSICIAN 

If,  for  any  reason  you  are  unable  to  leave 
the  ball  betimes  it  is  much  better  to  take 
forty  winks  than  to  make  a  musical  glutton 
of  yourself.  In  this  respect  old  Peter  the 
Great  was  far  in  advance  of  modern  practice. 
He  once  took  a  nap  at  the  Opera  and,  on 
awaking,  was  asked  if  the  performance  had 
wearied  him.  "  Not  in  the  least,"  he  replied. 
"  On  the  contrary,  I  liked  it  to  excess.  So  I 
went  to  sleep  from  motives  of  prudence." 
Doubtless  the  monarch  indulged  later  on  in 
a  good-night  stroll  and  thoroughly  thought 
over  the  act  or  two  which  he  had  heard. 

The  prudent  napper  will,  however,  be  very 
careful  not  to  exert  a  depressing  influence 
on  the  performers.  He  will  either  retire  to 
the  rear  of  the  box,  or  else  decline  so  low  in 
his  orchestra  chair  as  to  become  invisible  from 
the  stage. 

Under  a  sparing  regimen  like  that  just  out- 
lined the  musical  memory  will  grow  by  leaps 
and  will  soon  be  found  one  of  the  most  de- 
lightful assets  ever  vouchsafed  to  mortals. 
[133] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

Memory  in  hand  you  can  go  back  and  lord  it 
as  in  the  days  of  Haydn  and  Mozart,  when 
the  best  music  the  world  over  was  the  perquisite 
of  royalty  and  nobility  alone.  For  you  will  find 
your  memory  as  good  as  a  whole  emperor's 
retinue  of  orchestras  and  singers,  while  less 
cumbersome  and  far  easier  on  the  feelings  of 
the  performers. 

You  will  come  to  know  one  of  the  joys 
that  make  leisurely  browsing  in  a  library 
such  a  delight  to  the  book-lover  with  the 
well-stocked  brain,  —  the  joy  of  discovering 
relationships.  You  will  know  what  a  lark  it 
is  to  trace  the  genealogy  of  some  Debussy 
or  Loeffler  idea  back  to  Brahms,  and  from 
Brahms  to  Mendelssohn,  from  him  to  Schu- 
bert, and  then  back  to  Mozart  and  Bach  and 
Buxtehude  and  Palestrina  and  so  on  until  it 
grows  dim  in  the  mists  of  dawn.  This  and  a 
hundred  other  joys  will  come  and  convince 
you  that  music  never,  never  renders  up  its 
deepest  pleasures,  its  profoundest  help  in 
time  of  need,  its  sublimest  messages  to  men 
[134] 


THE  AMATEUR  AUTOMUSICIAN 

until  they  have  learned  to  remember  and  to 
digest  it.  Then  you  will  be  one  of  those  for- 
tunate ones 

"  Who  carry  music  in  their  heart 
Through  dusky  lane  and  wrangling  mart, 
Plying  their  daily  task  with  busier  feet, 
Because  their  secret  souls  a  holy  strain  repeat." 

I  said  just  now  that  a  musical  memory  was 
as  good  as  a  whole  troupe  of  players  and 
singers.  In  many  ways  it  is  far  better,  and 
especially  on  account  of  the  perfection  of  the 
performance,  —  its  sensuous  wonder,  with  all 
the  ugly  shortcomings  hidden  and  all  the  ex- 
cellences glorified.  It  is  at  one  of  these  re- 
trospective concerts  that  we  mortals  receive 
in  full  measure  the  benefit  of  that  divine  law 
which  always  mars,  however  slightly,  the  per- 
fection of  any  actually  present  pleasure  that 
it  may  endue  the  distance  with  what  Ruskin 
calls  "  that  sweet  bloom  of  all  that  is  far 
away."  For  a  performance  on  the  stage  of 
memory  is  able  to  include  all  the  perfections 
and  expunge  all  the  imperfections  of  past 
[  135  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

music.  This  is  the  most  beautiful  thing  about 
a  vigorous  musical  memory,  that  it  lets  us  en- 
joy the  far  away  at  the  closest  possible  range 
with  all  its  sweet  bloom  fresh  upon  it. 

"  Heard  melodies  are  sweet,  but  those  unheard 
Are  sweeter." 

The  critic  who  ridiculed  the  phrase  "un- 
heard melodies"  as  "a contradiction  in  terms" 
was  having  a  sadly  unimaginative  moment. 
For  who  does  not  know  that  the  poet  meant 
those  ditties  which  have  "no  tone"  for  any 
ear  save  that  inner  one  "  which  is  the  bliss 
of  solitude  "  ? 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  learn  about  the 
perils  of  musical  indigestion  and  the  pleasures 
of  memory  from  Walthers  and  his  fellows  in 
The  Ear  Club.  For  very  much  as  Keats  in  his 
delicious  letter  to  Reynolds  once  advocated 
a  "  sparing  touch  of  noble  books  "  did  these 
truly  creative  listeners  preach  musical  temper- 
ance. And  many  of  my  rarest  memories  of 
the  old  Thomas  Orchestra  cluster,  not  about 
[136  ] 


THE   AMATEUR  AUTOMUSICIAN 

the  Auditorium,  but  about  the  shores  of  Lake 
Michigan  where  I  would  take  my  single  sym- 
phony or  overture  to  "  wander  with  it,  and 
muse  upon  it,  and  reflect  from  it,  and  bring 
home  to  it,  and  prophesy  upon  it,  and  dream 
upon  it  "  :  —  to  pipe  it  to  the  choir  of  the 
winds,  to  hum  it  to  the  gentle  string-murmur 
of  the  ripples,  or  with  some  heavy  theme 
strive  to  out-roar  the  drum-battery  of  the 
breakers. 

One  Friday  afternoon  gleams  out  above  all. 
First  on  the  programme  came  the  lovely  Sym- 
phonic Variations  of  Dvorak.  Next  appeared 
Nordica.  But  before  the  first  note  of  her  aria 
I  was  off  for  the  old  haunts  on  the  shore, 
fairly  "  evaporating  "  Dvorak,  as  Stevenson 
would  say.  Undaunted  by  any  wide  demand, 
memory  ran  blithely,  and  soon  the  piece  be- 
came but  one  variation  of  a  larger  set  in 
which  the  rich  undertone  of  the  great  city, 
the  serried  ranks  of  saffron  clouds,  the  swoop- 
ing gulls,  and  the  emerald  field  of  foam-flash- 
ing waters  bore  part.  And  for  the  Jinale  the 
[137  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

sun,  slanting  through  the  towers  of  the  me- 
tropolis, seemed  by  some  divine  chemistry  to 
draw  forth  all  the  nobility  and  beauty  hidden 
beneath  and  to  waft  them,  a  broad  crimson 
harmony,  out  toward  the  shoreless  horizon. 

As  we  grow  older  and  perhaps  a  little 
harder  of  hearing,  we  notice  that  the  heard 
melodies  begin  to  lose  some  of  their  old, 
piquant  charm.  But,  as  more  than  com- 
pensation, "those  unheard"  seem  to  grow 
sweeter  and  sweeter.  Perhaps  it  was  not  such 
a  harsh  fate  after  all  that  closed  Beethoven's 
ears  to  the  strumming  and  scraping  and  toot- 
ing of  his  own  day,  while  opening  them  more 
and  more  to  those  ineffable  strains  which  he 
wove  into  his  swan  song. 

Never  again,  I  suppose,  shall  we  scattered 
members  of  The  Ear  Club  be  so  susceptible 
to  the  mitigated  pleasures  of  the  heard  melo- 
dies as  in  those  young  years  of  the  virginity 
of  sense.  And  no  orchestra  may  now  thrill 
us  quite  so  deeply  as  a  stroll  in  the  happy 
autumn  woods  of  memory,  where  each  yel- 
[138] 


THE  AMATEUR  AUTOMUSICIAN 

lowing  leaf  flutters  in  an  old  programme- 
book.  Gone  are  the  discordant  influences  of 
the  philistine,  forgotten,  all  the  flaws  of  ren- 
dition. Unalloyed  and  ideal  those  soundless 
symphonies  float  out  upon  the  pure  ether  of 
the  past,  dross-purged  in  the  kindly  reaches 
of  the  years.  As  the  inner  eye  wanders  over 
that  beloved  section  of  the  Auditorium  there 
appear  through  the  tense  atmosphere  of  Tone 
visions  of  the  dear  familiar  faces.  The  air  of 
"  Waldweben  "  begins  its  soft  stirring  in  the 
depths  of  the  enchanted  forest,  and  the  bird 
begins  the  same  old  song  it  sang  to  Siegfried 
when  all  the  world  was  young. 


VIII 

THE  MUSICAL  TEMPERAMENT  AND  ITS 
DRAWBACKS 

"  The  man  that  hath  no  music  in  himself, 
Nor  is  not  moved  with  concord  of  sweet  sounds, 
Is  fit  for  treasons,  stratagems,  and  spoils  ; 
The  motions  of  his  spirit  are  dull  as  night, 
And  his  affections  dark  as  Erebus  ; 
Let  no  such  man  be  trusted  ! " 

Even  Shakespeare  sometimes  nodded.  Un- 
drugged  by  poppy  and  mandragora  he  surely 
would  never  have  allowed  such  a  trustworthy 
character  as  Lorenzo  to  slander  the  unmusical 
thus  abominably.  The  poet,  it  is  true,  was  even 
then  holding  a  mirror  up  to  nature;  only 
mirrors  have  this  peculiarity,  that  what  seems 
right  when  you  look  into  them  is  really  left. 
Or  perhaps  he  did  not  know  the  musical  tem- 
perament as  well  as  he  would  have  us  believe. 
For  no  man  in  his  senses  who  was  quite 
familiar  with  both  the  musical  and  the  un- 
[140] 


THE   MUSICAL  TEMPERAMENT 

musical  worlds  would  have  discriminated  thus 
against  the  latter. 

But  "  truth  is  great  and  shall  prevail." 
And  some  day  one  of  those  all-wise  Shake- 
speare editors  who  have  such  a  flair  for 
false  statements  may  be  counted  upon  to 
emend  this  notorious  passage  into  something 
like  the  following :  — 

The  man  that  hath  much  music  in  himself, 
And  is  commoved  with  concord  of  sweet  sounds, 
Is  fit  for  treasons,  stratagems,  — 

and  so  on. 

This  book  has  thus  far  exhibited  the  phil- 
istine  in  a  most  unattractive  light.  He  has 
been  shown  as  a  destructive  person  who 
strews  sand  in  the  musical  gear-box, — an  in- 
cubus who  rides  the  fiddler's  bow-arm  much 
as,  in  Germany,  those  horrid  night-fiends 
called  Marten  are  supposed  to  squat  on  the 
chests  of  unfortunate  sleepers.  Nothing  has 
been  too  insulting,  too  cruel  to  say  of  him. 

Yes,  but  we  have  been  withholding  half 
of  the  truth.  For  philistinism  is  not  half  as 
[141] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

unenviable  a  state  as  it  has  been  painted; 
and  there  is,  on  the  other  hand,  a  dismal  ob- 
verse side  to  the  musical  temperament.  The 
situation  is  enough  to  make  the  law  of  com- 
pensation sit  up  and  lick  its  chops  and  purr 
with  delight.  One  may  not  have  his  cake  and 
eat  it  too.  To  enjoy  musical  advantages,  as 
the  phrase  runs,  is  not  only  to  be  tortured 
by  musical  disadvantages  but  also  to  miss 
enjoying  unmusical  advantages. 

A  lady  once  played  a  sonata  for  Doctor 
Johnson.  At  the  close  he  had  nothing  to 
say.  "  Are  you  fond  of  music  ?  "  she  asked 
him,  a  little  piqued.  "  No,  madam,"  replied 
the  Doctor,  "  but  of  all  noises  I  think  music 
the  least  disagreeable." 

Lord  North  was  once  asked  why  he  did  not 
subscribe  for  a  certain  series  of  concerts  as 
his  brother  the  bishop  had  done.  "Well,"  he 
answered,  "if  I  were  as  deaf  as  my  brother, 
I  would." 

"  Clarence,"  begs  the  typical  philistine's 
wife,  "  come  into  the  parlor  and  hear  Miss 
[142] 


THE   MUSICAL  TEMPERAMENT 

Littlesharp  sing."  "My  dear/'  he  answers, 
"would  you  stir  out  of  your  chair  to  hear 
a  lecture  in  Choctaw?  You  know  perfectly 
well  that  I  can't  tell  '  Yankee  Doodle '  from 
that  '  Fifty-ninth  Sonata '  you  talk  so  much 
about." 

Now  the  musical  do  not  scorn  Clarence 
and  these  fellow  philistines  of  his ;  they  pity 
them.  They  regard  them  as  tenderly  as  if 
the  latter  were  blind  and  could  never  know 
the  luscious,  autumnal  haze  of  a  Giorgione 
background,  or  the  radiance  that  Rembrandt 
makes  to  shine  out  of  some  squalid  witch  of 
old  Amsterdam,  or  a  row  of  the  delicate, 
spirit-like  trees  of  Try  on. 

But,  with  this  tenderness  toward  the  un- 
musical brother  is  mingled  a  sort  of  gentle, 
wistful  envy.  For  though  his  ears  are  insen- 
sible to  the  ocean-roll  of  Bach's  organ,  to  the 
solar  majesty  of  Beethoven's  god-like  voice 
and  the  cloud-pageant  of  Wagner's  orches- 
tra, —  these  same  ears  are  also  impervious  to 
most  of  the  slings  and  arrows  with  which  an 
[  143  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

outrageously  noisy  world  keeps  torturing  the 
musical  tympanum.  For  if  music,  as  Pope 
avers,  "  can  soften  pain  to  ease,"  the  musical 
temperament  can  even  more  readily  harden 
ease  to  pain. 

Not  so  with  the  temperament  of  the  philis- 
tine.  The  tumult  and  the  shouting  of  Sixth 
Avenue  and  its  purple  faced  newsboys  leaves 
him  in  perfect  tranquillity.  Unracked  he  can 
sit  in  September  writing  the  serenest  of 
Christmas  stories  full  of  peace-on-earth-good- 
will-toward-men  while  beneath  the  open  win- 
dow a  hurdy-gurdy  is  murdering  Mascagni 
in  two  simultaneous  keys  without  waking  in 
him  a  single  yearning  wish  for  the  day  when 
the  grinders  shall  cease  because  they  are  few, 
or  the  astringent  recitatives  of  the  swiftly 
recurrent  old-clothes  men,  either,  with  their 
ghoulish  wail  of  "  Buy  ge-a-ash-glo  !  "  If  a 
gamin  suddenly  whistles  through  his  teeth  in 
the  face  of  his  musical  friend,  the  fortunate 
Clarence  can  only  smile  in  pitying  condescen- 
sion when  the  other  winces  as  though  some 
[144] 


THE   MUSICAL  TEMPERAMENT 

surgeon's  wicked  little  lancet  were  perform- 
ing a  mastoid  operation  on  him. 

People  like  Clarence  have  no  concert-stage 
within  their  heads  inscribed,  "This  curtain 
never  drops."  They  are  not  obliged  to  en- 
tertain against  their  wills  a  cerebral  imp  of 
melody  who  never  wearies  of  turning  the 
crank  of  his  perpetual  motion  machine.  But 
the  musical  temperament,  —  Heaven  help  it ! 
—  is  frequently  fitted  out  with  this  incon- 
venient, and  often  maddening,  equipment. 
Every  act  of  the  conscious  life  of  many  a 
musical  amateur  is  performed  to  some  sort  of 
subjective  music.  Now  this  is  all  very  well 
on  a  sunny  morning  as  one  slips  under  the 
creel-strap  and  swings  into  stride.  Then  the 
music-box  in  the  amateur's  head  is  like  to 
play  some  brave  melody  from  a  Brahms  sex- 
tet, making  him  glow  like  so  much  old  wine, 
or  set  him  off  to  a  swinging,  lilting  strain  of 
the  Seventh  Symphony,  or  float  him  along  in 
a  golden  dream  like  unto  the  Walhalla  mo- 
tive. Even  in  doing  this,  of  course,  the  mu- 
[145  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

sic-box  is  performing  him  a  work  of  superero- 
gation. The  rub  of  the  creel  against  his  side, 
the  promise  of  the  five-ounce  rod  in  his  hand, 
the  fallen  leaves  on  the  forest  floor,  blending, 
with  their  crimson  fronts  and  bluish  backs, 
to  diffuse  a  purple,  Monet-ish  glory  in  the 
aisle  of  the  wood-cathedral,  —  surely  these 
were  paradise  enow.  Makes  no  difference! 
Herren  Wagner,  Beethoven  and  Brahms  pre- 
sent their  distinguished  compliments  and  in- 
sist on  painting  the  amateur's  lilies. 

But  how  about  the  late  afternoon  when, 
under  a  drizzling  sky,  he  slinks  home  wet 
and  cold  and  ravenous  without  having  had  a 
single  rise  ?  Do  his  divine  music-masters,  like 
Elijah's  ravens,  minister  unto  him  in  this 
strait  ?  Not  at  all !  The  music-box  only 
makes  existence  more  cold  and  dark  and 
dreary  by  grinding  out  with  harsh  rapidity 
the  most  abandoned  rag-time  tunes  to  which 
his  ears  have  ever  in  some  hapless  moment 
been  exposed.  Unfortunately  this  perpetual 
concert  always  varies  in  quality  directly  as 
[  146] 


THE   MUSICAL  TEMPERAMENT 

the  height  of  his  spirits,  cheapening  steadily 
as  his  sense  of  well-being  declines.  Half  the 
time  he  would  cheerfully  exchange  his  tune- 
in-the-head  for  a  cold-in-the-head. 

For  all  this,  though,  he  would  scarcely 
trade  shoes  with  Clarence.  He  had  rather 
change  places  with  one  of  those  delightful 
people  who  are  forever  declaring  with  such  a 
pleased  air  of  saying  something  original,  "  I 
don't  know  music  but  I  know  what  I  like." 
This  is  a  little  as  though  one  should  admit : 
"I  don't  know  my  musical  goal,  but  I'm  on 
the  way."  Often  with  a  tremendous  show 
of  catholicity,  these  persons  claim  to  enjoy 
(somewhat)  everything  from  kazoos  to  Knei- 
sels ;  though  any  one  with  eyes  can  see  that 
their  real  musical  Eden  lies  where  the  Spread 
Eagle  Brass  Band  is  performing  such  "music 
uninformed  by  art "  as  A  Day  in  the  Farm- 
yard. 

These  persons  are  happy  cases  of  arrested 
musical  development.  In  the  first  chapter  we 
held  that  just  as  every  adult  of  us  has,  in  his 
[147  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

growth,  reproduced  each  successive  stage  in 
the  evolution  of  the  race,  so  nearly  every 
full-grown  music-lover  has  passed  through  all 
the  successive  stages  between  supreme  alle- 
giance to  the  rattle-solo  and  to  the  Choral 
Symphony.  Now  the  man  whose  chief  delight 
is  a  vivid  rendition  of  A  Day  in  the  Farm- 
yard remains,  musically  speaking,  in  the  en- 
joyment of  perpetual  youth.  His  pleasure  in 
farmyard  music  is  immense.  Yet  he  comes  in 
for  most  of  the  advantages  of  the  strictly  un- 
musical with  far  more  than  their  share  of 
fun.  How  enviable  is  his  lot !  He  admittedly 
enjoys  a  great  many  varieties  of  music 
(though  some,  it  is  true,  in  the  very  great- 
est moderation)  —  and  suffers  from  none. 
With  apologies  to  Terence  he  can  declare  that 
nothing  which  makes  a  noise  is  foreign  to 
his  nature.  While  on  the  other  hand,  the 
man  of  cultivated  musical  sensibilities  enjoys 
(intensely,  of  course)  only  a  very  small  por- 
tion of  the  audible  universe,  and  suffers  in- 
tensely from  a  large  part  of  the  rest. 
[148  ] 


THE   MUSICAL   TEMPERAMENT 

The  demi-musical  amateur  who  knows  what 
he  likes  is  even  more  fortunate  than  the  man 
that  hath  no  music  in  himself.  He  is  no 
stickler  for  mere  detail.  A  waltz  by  Chopin, 
or  blind  Tim,  a  simple  waltz-tune  is  to  him, 
and  it  is  nothing  more.  Some  persons  believe 
everything  they  see  in  print.  He  likewise 
accepts  as  music  everything  with  lines  and 
spaces,  as  did  the  double-bass  player  who,  re- 
turning home  by  moonlight  "pretty  well  so- 
so,"  insisted  upon  undressing  his  instrument 
and  playing  the  sparrows  on  the  telegraph 
wires.  Berlioz's  young  woman  in  the  music- 
store  is  a  classical  example  of  the  type.  "But, 
mademoiselle,"  suggested  the  clerk,  "  this 
piece  in  five  sharps,  —  will  it  not  perhaps  be 
rather  too  difficult?"  "Pooh,"  she  replied 
disdainfully,  "  that  is  all  one  to  me.  When- 
ever I  find  more  than  two  sharps  or  flats  I 
scratch  them  out  with  my  penknife." 

The  demi-musical  is  an  uncompromising 
optimist.  He  can  with  pleasure  sit  out  a  con- 
cert during  which  the  poor  music-knower  has 
[149] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

had  to  writhe  whenever  the  accompanist  has 
"  rushed  the  discords  in  "  (presumably)  "that 
harmony  should  be  prized,"  or  the  singers 
have  tried  the  wrong  key  to  "  The  Holy 
City,"  or  raised  the  roof  with  "  Still  wie  die 
Nacht"  or  galloped  furiously  through  "  For- 
ever with  the  Lord." 

"  How  sour  sweet  music  is, 
When  time  is  broke,  and  no  proportion  kept !  " 

the  knower  reflects,  and  registers  a  vow  never 
to  put  himself  in  such  a  position  again. 

These  things,  on  the  other  hand,  have 
been  so  far  from  disturbing  the  demi-musical 
that  he  has  most  likely  whispered  straight 
through  some  of  the  pieces,  and  stamped  or 
nodded  an  accompaniment  to  others,  to  show 
that  he  really  appreciated  them,  and  perhaps 
hummed  sotto  voce  and  munched  peanuts 
and  brittle  candy,  and  burst  into  applause 
just  when  the  piano  was  working  up  to  the 
point  of  the  musical  story,  and  encored  the 
very  worst  pieces  again  and  again.  And  he 
[150] 


THE  MUSICAL  TEMPERAMENT 

has  even  found  time  to  speculate  on  why  the 
silent  little  fellow  over  there  looks  so  nerv- 
ous and  why  his  eyes  seem  to  glare  with 
something  curiously  akin  to  murderous  pas- 
sion. 

Ah,  if  the  man  with  the  peanuts  only  real- 
ized a  small  part  of  what  the  wretch  with  the 
musical  temperament  is  suffering  he  never 
again  would  cast  up  his  eyes  and  utter  the 
piteous  wish  that  he  "  knew  music."  Why, 
the  fortunate  fellow  can  actually  stand  up  in 
church  and  have  Brown  sing  one  tune,  and 
Smith  another  into  his  two  ears,  while  Miss 
Jones,  ^immediately  behind,  closely  imitates 
the  tune  the  invertebrate  organist  is  grap- 
pling with  (only  the  young  woman  is  a  third 
of  a  tone  sharp  and  a  beat  and  a  quarter  be- 
hind) —  and  all  this  is  positively  uplifting  to 
the  good  man.  He  can  attend  prayer-meeting 
and  join  in  so-called  gospel  hymns  which,  in 
genuine  religious  feeling,  fall  as  far  below 
some  of  our  grand  old  hymns  as  A  Day  in 
the  Farmyard  falls  below  Bach's  Passion 
[151  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

Music,  —  and  from  these  he  can  derive  a 
pious  glow.  But  the  miserable  lover  of  music 
comes  away  from  such  experiences  as  sick  at 
heart  as  though  he  had  been  beguiled  into 
abetting  the  most  horrid  orgies  of  blasphemy. 
Next  Sunday  he  timidly  tries  another  church. 
Then  the  man  with  the  peanuts  scorns  him  as 
thin-skinned,  perhaps  even  impious  as  well, 
if  he  should  venture  to  speak  his  mind. 

If  only  the  half  and  quarter  and  zero 
worlds  of  music  could  know  what  they  miss  ! 
If  only  they  could  be  cursed  for  a  single 
hour  with  ears  like  the  ears  of  Wagner. 
While  he  was  in  Venice  composing  Tristan, 
Wagner  wrote  to  a  friend,  "Ich  bin  ganz 
ungemein  empfindlich,  so  dass  ich  alles  das 
schmerzlich  in  mir  empfinde,  was  bei  min- 
derer  Sensibilitat  gar  nicht  erst  in  das  Be- 
wusstsein  tritt."  ("  I  am  quite  uncommonly 
sensitive  so  that  all  kinds  of  things  give  me 
pain  of  which  people  of  lesser  sensibility  are 
not  even  conscious.")  If  the  general  public 
could  simply  be  made  to  feel  for  one  brief 
[152  ] 


THE   MUSICAL  TEMPERAMENT 

morning  a  few  of  the  common  agonies  that 
ordinary  musical  ears  have  to  endure  without 
respite,  but  that  never  pass  the  threshold  of 
philistine  consciousness  ;  —  the  needle-like 
whistle  of  the  peanut  vendor,  for  instance, 
the  flat  car-wheel  and  the  loud,  grating  ring 
of  the  fare  indicator,  —  by  noon  what  a  tor- 
rent of  agitation  would  break  forth,  with 
what  extraordinary  powers  would  they  not 
clothe  our  struggling  little  Society  for  the 
Prevention  of  Unnecessary  Noise  !  Why,  be- 
fore long  we  might  actually  be  imitating  the 
Germans,  —  people  so  musically  developed 
that  they  respect  their  ears  almost  as  much 
as  they  do  their  noses. 

That  day  will  probably  be  slow  in  coming. 
For  the  great  mass  of  Americans  are  scarcely 
more  than  demi-musical.  And  the  few  unfor- 
tunate pioneers  who  have  ventured  further 
than  this  along  the  path  of  musical  evolution 
find  their  present  environment  little  more 
congenial  than  the  early  Christians  found 
theirs  in  Rome ;  or  than  Captain  Cook,  say, 
[  153  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

found  his  when  the  Sandwich  men  began  re- 
garding him  with  a  professional  eye. 

A  word  with  the  bated  breath  of  pity  for 
those  who  are  afflicted  with  the  disease  known 
as  "  absolute  pitch."  Even  among  the  quite 
moderately  musical  there  are  more  than  we 
imagine  who  know  the  tonal  alphabet  so  well 
that  they  can  always  sing  A  B  C  at  will, 
though  the  rest  of  us,  unless  we  first  thump 
the  piano,  are  just  as  apt  to  sing  E  F  G  and 
never  know  our  mistake.  Ah,  but  they  know 
our  mistake  only  too  well,  the  poor  souls,  and 
whenever  any  one  sings  or  whistles  anything 
out  of  its  original  key,  they  are  kept  busy, 
willy-nilly,  transposing  it  mentally  for  their 
lives,  as  though  the  bottom  had  dropped  out 
of  their  musical  cab  and  they  dared  not  call 
out  to  the  driver.  A  few  of  the  more  fortu- 
nate absolute  pitchers,  however,  have  taught 
themselves  to  adopt  a  laissez-faire  policy. 
One  of  the  most  miserable  of  the  unemanci- 
pated  pitchers  loved  the  water.  But  diving 
affected  his  ears  so  that  one  of  them  heard 
[154] 


THE   MUSICAL  TEMPERAMENT 

everything  half  a  tone  higher  than  the  other. 
Thereupon  all  music  was  turned  for  him  into 
the  sort  of  Brown-Smith  church  duet  already 
alluded  to.  He  was  rapidly  growing  frantic 
when  he  hit  upon  the  happy  expedient  of 
plugging  one  ear  with  cotton  during  music. 
Defeat  was  even  turned  into  victory,  for  he 
discovered  that  when  tunes  were  whistled  out 
of  the  right  key  he  could  often  save  himself 
the  toil  of  mental  transposition  by  a  cunning 
manipulation  of  the  cotton. 

Thus  far  we  have  considered  the  advan- 
tages of  the  unmusical  and  less  musical  as 
contrasted  with  the  drawbacks  of  the  nor- 
mally musical  temperament.  But  these  ad- 
vantages gleam  with  triple  refulgence  when 
contrasted  with  the  hapless  condition  of  the 
super-musical.  These  wretched  beings  are 
direct  descendants  of  Heimdall,  the  god  of 
our  heathen  ancestors  in  the  fatherland  of 
Tone.  His  ears  were  so  refined  he  "could 
hear  the  grass  growing  in  the  ground  and 
the  wool  on  the  sheeps'  backs."  Now,  by 
[155] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

imagining  the  god  Heimdall's  feelings  if  he 
were  set  down  abruptly  in  the  Bowery,  one 
may  gain  some  idea  of  what  the  super-musi- 
cal suffer  most  of  the  time. 

True,  it  may  be  all  very  flattering  to  a  cer- 
tain kind  of  vanity  to  have  your  own  un- 
prompted senses  tell  you  as  you  sit  under  the 
spell  of  the  Boston  Symphony  that  the  sec- 
ond flutist  has  just  touched  a  corner  of  his 
thirteenth  key  in  feeling  for  the  fourteenth. 
Yes,  but  what  is  this  fleeting  satisfaction 
worth  in  view  of  the  fact  that  our  land  pos- 
sesses only  a  handful  of  organizations  per- 
fect enough  to  give  the  super-musical  more 
pleasure  than  pain ;  and  that  concerts  by  the 
others  are  apt  to  torture  his  raw,  quivering 
ear-drums  as  much  as  all  the  street  cries  of  Man- 
hattan, compacted  into  one  horrid  outburst, 
could  affront  the  normal  connoisseur  of  tone? 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  being  so  musical 
that  you  are  to  all  intents  and  purposes  un- 
musical. I  know  of  a  gentleman  so  highly 
organized  that  he  has  enjoyed  music  but 
[  156  ] 


THE   MUSICAL  TEMPERAMENT 

twice  in  his  life ;  once,  a  concert  by  the  Fisk 
Jubilee  Singers  and  once  a  service  of  the 
Greek  Church  in  Russia.  This  is  nothing 
short  of  musical  puritanism.  It  implies  such 
an  uncompromising  standard  of  perfection 
that  life  becomes  one  constant  chaotic,  irri- 
tating fit  of  tuning-up  for  the  flawless,  ce- 
lestial harmony  to  come, — even  though  the 
heart-strings  may  snap  as  the  inexorable 
pegs  go  on  twisting  them  up  and  up  to  super- 
concert  pitch. 

But  even  the  musical  puritan,  if  he  be  a 
mere  listener,  has  not  tasted  the  dregs  of 
Apollo's  draught  in  their  full  bitterness. 
Let  him  wait  till  he  learns  to  play. 

"  'T  is  we  musicians  know,"  a  very  fair 
amateur  organist  once  declared.  True ;  but 
what  is  it  that  we  know?  The  half  has  never 
been  told.  It  has,  of  course,  been  told  more 
than  once  how  wonderful  we  musicians  find 
it  to  pile  up  our  pinnacled  glories  of  tone 
till  the  pride  of  our  souls  is  in  sight.  But 
what  meets  us,  I  should  like  to  know,  when 
[157] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

we  climb  down  from  our  exalted  seat  in 
front  of  the  great  organ,  down,  down  to  the  C 
major  of  this  life?  Peaceful  slumber?  Alas, 
quite  the  contrary !  We  have  heard  a  good 
deal  about  the  joys  of  music  in  heaven.  But 
there  exists,  as  I  understand,  a  kind  of  music 
in  the  other  place  too.  .  .  . 

To  the  pain  he  suffers  from  the  music  of 
others  the  embryo  student  who  is  afflicted 
with  a  musical  temperament  now  adds  the 
pain  he  suffers  from  his  own  music.  This  is 
no  place  for  the  brutal  touches  of  realism 
necessary  to  depict  the  hardships  of  the  or- 
dinary learner.  But  perhaps  a  dim  sidelight 
may  be  shed  thereon  by  considering  what 
even  those  favored  ones  had  to  endure  who 
traveled  the  first  human  short-cut  to  the  art 
of  fiddling. 

It  is  recorded  in  Grimm  that  an  old  Nor- 
wegian water-spirit  called  Fossegrim  taught 
the  fiddle  to  any  one  "who,  on  a  Saturday 
evening,  sacrificed,  with  averted  head,  a  little 
white  goat  to  him  and  cast  it  into  a  north- 
[158] 


THE   MUSICAL  TEMPERAMENT 

ward  streaming  waterfall.  Was  the  offering 
lean,  he  taught  the  niggard  no  more  than 
to  tune  his  riddle.  Was  it  fat,  however,  he 
would  seize  the  player's  right  hand  and  draw 
it  back  and  forth  until  the  blood  spirted 
from  every  finger-tip.  Not  till  then  was  the 
pupil  perfected  in  his  art,  and  could  play  so 
that  the  trees  danced  and  the  very  waterfall 
stood  still."  But  pains  like  these,  heroic  as 
they  are,  are  nothing  to  what  every  learner 
must  endure  to-day.  For  this  royal  road  to 
fiddling  has  long  since  been  closed  and  a 
double  bar  put  up  across  the  entrance. 

Even  when  the  learner  has  made  a  musi- 
cian of  himself  by  the  usual  arduous  methods, 
his  troubles  have  but  fairly  begun.  Would  he 
indulge  in  the  royal  sport  of  chamber  music? 
The  search  for  other  amateurs  neither  "  too 
good"  for  him  nor  "too  bad"  is  like  to  be 
scarcely  more  rewarding  than  the  puritan's 
ungenial  quest  of  perfection.  There  is  usu- 
ally a  little  rift  within  the  lute  of  ensemble. 
Either  the  second  violin  proudly  recalls  the 
[159] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

prophecy  "the  last  shall  be  first,"  or  the 
leader  would  autocratically  turn  everything 
into  a  violin  solo  with  string  accompaniment, 
or  the  'cellist's  right  hand  knoweth  not  what 
his  left  doeth.  I  recall  a  string  quartet  in  my 
college  dormitory  whose  little  rift  was  that 
the  viola  player  possessed  only  a  violin  case 
for  his  instrument  and  had  to  take  down  the 
bridge  in  order  to  shut  the  lid,  as  a  river 
boat  dips  its  funnel  in  city  waters.  This  ex- 
pedient resulted  in  a  quality  of  tone  better 
suited  to  the  performance  of  oriental  than  of 
occidental  music. 

Let  us  pass  with  averted  head  the  grizzly 
horrors  of  stage  fright,  subjective  or  object- 
ive, for  even  though  you  may  not  suffer  from 
it  yourself,  it  is  almost  as  bad  to  have  your 
brother  fiddler  grow  yellowish  green  and  be- 
gin turning  over  two  pages  at  once,  and  to 
hear  his  most  legato  bowing  transformed  into 
a  perfect  up  and  down  bow  staccato  which 
he  could  not  for  the  life  of  him  duplicate  off 
the  stage.  And  then  to  have  him  jump  up 
[160] 


THE   MUSICAL  TEMPERAMENT 

with  a  look  of  heavenly  relief  after  the  first 
number  of  a  group  of  three  and  start  for  the 
exit  and  be  obliged  to  call  him  back  in  a  ter- 
rible stage  whisper ! 

No  more  of  the  odious  subject.  And  let  us 
draw  a  veil  over  the  performer's  feelings  when 
in  the  trolley  on  his  way  to  the  concert  the 
fat  lady  to  whom  he  really  could  n't  give  up 
his  seat  plumps  down  upon  his  'cello  at  the 
curve  and  reduces  it  to  kindling. 

The  special  drawbacks  of  professional  life 
will  have  to  be  reserved  for  the  two  follow- 
ing chapters.  These  will  consider  in  detail 
how  we  Americans  habitually  knock  the  pro- 
fessional music  master  down  when  we  are  not 
engaged  in  "  holding  him  up  "  ;  and  how,  by 
a  tacit  but  general  understanding,  he  is  ex- 
pected to  stand  and  deliver  at  any  moment 
without  money  and  without  price  hundreds 
of  dollars  worth  of  his  wares. 

Ah,  what  brutal  life  discords,  what  harsh, 
abrupt  transitions  our  brethren  with  unmu- 
sical temperaments  escape  !  Although  they 
[161  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

may  never  realize  the  fullness  of  life  that  the 
musical  enjoy,  let  them  take  as  unction  to 
their  souls  the  assurance  that  their  mail  will 
never  include  one  of  those  dreadful  bills  for 
"arrears  of  pain,  darkness  and  cold"  that  the 
musical  temperament  can  never  manage  to 
get  paid  in  full. 

In  their  rare  moments  of  unalloyed  artistic 
rapture,  in  playing  quartets,  for  instance, 
with  three  crony-hearts,  the  musical  some- 
times persuade  themselves  that  one  crowded 
hour  of  glorious  Brahms  is  worth  an  eternity 
of  American  newsboys  and  hurdy-gurdys, 
of  average  singers,  old  clothes  men,  elevated 
trains,  and  granite  pavements. 

But  what  a  fall  is  that,  my  countrymen, 
when  at  length  they  strike  the  minor  and  be- 
gin bumping  downstairs  by  semitones,  down, 
down  to  the  cold,  harsh  "  C  major  of  this  life  " 
which  seems  to  constitute  the  iron-barred, 
cobble-paved  basement  of  the  golden  halls 
of  Tone.  Then  it  is  that,  from  the  bottom  of 
their  hearts,  they  envy  the  unmusical. 
[162] 


THE  MUSICAL  TEMPERAMENT 

But  later,  when,  in  cold  blood,  they  come 
to  weigh  the  matter  on  the  hedonistic  scales, 
they  are  not  so  sure  after  all  in  which  direc- 
tion the  pointer  swings. 

Well,  perhaps  we  might  learn  the  real  truth 
if  we  were  to  wrest  Heine  ever  so  little : 

Angels  call  it  bliss  supernal  ; 
Devils  call  it  pain  infernal  ; 
Mortals  call  it  — 

the  musical  temperament. 


IX 

WHAT  THE  AMATEUR  ESCAPES 

In  the  last  chapter  were  discussed  some  of 
the  pains  and  sorrows  peculiar  to  the  musi- 
cal temperament.  In  addition  to  these  draw- 
backs there  are  others  almost  wholly  peculiar 
to  the  lot  of  the  professional  musician.  They 
are  so  grievous  as  to  make  that  of  the  ama- 
teur seem  well-nigh  painless  in  comparison. 

These  additional  drawbacks  we  are  about 
to  consider.  But  not,  I  hope,  in  any  spirit  of 
self-complacency.  For  the  amateur  who  would 
be  guilty  of  gloating  over  the  special  mis- 
fortunes of  his  professional  brother  ought  at 
once  to  lose  his  amateur  standing  and  have 
his  bow-thumb  severed  by  the  public  execu- 
tioner. 

The  phrase  "professional  musician  "  brings 
before  the  mind  of  the  average  American  the 
vision  of  a  freakish  looking  foreigner  with 
[164] 


WHAT  THE  AMATEUR  ESCAPES 

flowing  mane  and  doubtful  morals,  undesir- 
able as  a  citizen,  and  barely  to  be  tolerated 
for  what  he  can  do.  This  fancy  is  as  wide- 
spread as  that  the  "  Italian  "  is  the  offscouring 
of  Naples,  who  in  turn  scours  off  our  streets, 
our  apples,  and  our  shoes.  Consequently  the 
executive  musician  holds  a  far  less  desirable 
place  in  the  community  than  his  fellows  in 
interpretative  art,  the  actor,  the  critic,  or  the 
elocutionist. 

-  It  is  not  so  very  long  since  all  professional 
musicians  were  the  Lord  or  King  Somebody, 
his  servants,  —  not  so  long  but  that  the  now 
emancipated  fiddler  can  show  to  this  day  the 
black  eye  his  old  master  gave  him.  For  the 
musician  is  socially  a  victim  of  the  youth  of  his 
art,  —  a  victim  of  that  human  —  or  rather, 
inhuman  —  conservatism  which  is  wont  to  re- 
fuse even  the  devil  his  due  until  a  couple  of 
centuries  after  the  bill  has  been  sent  to  the 
collection  agency.  The  art  of  the  fiddler  is 
as  yet  too  young  and  tentative  to  enjoy  that 
consideration  which  is  awarded  to  scions  of 
[165  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

"the  old  families."  This  is  proved  by  the 
fact  that  the  representatives  of  the  far  elder 
art  of  singing  have  a  much  more  desirable 
social  standing  to-day  than  those  new  people, 
the  instrumentalists.  "Vocal  music,"  writes 
Mr.  Krehbiel,  "  had  reached  its  highest  point 
before  instrumental  music  made  a  beginning 
as  an  art.  The  former  was  the  pampered  child 
of  the  church  "  (and  still  is,  by  the  way),  "  the 
latter  was  long  an  outlaw.  As  late  as  the  four- 
teenth and  fifteenth  centuries  instrumental- 
ists were  vagabonds  in  law.  .  .  .  They  had 
none  of  the  rights  of  citizenship  ;  the  relig- 
ious sacraments  were  denied  them ;  their 
children  were  not  permitted  to  inherit  pro- 
perty or  learn  an  honorable  trade ;  and  after 
death  the  property  for  which  they  had  toiled 
escheated  to  the  crown."  (This  last  injury 
may  help  to  explain  the  musician's  proverbial 
improvidence.) 

"He   was   a  fiddler,  and  consequently  a 
rogue,"  wrote  Swift  to  Stella  of  some  hapless 
professional  exactly  two  hundred  years  ago. 
[  166] 


WHAT  THE  AMATEUR  ESCAPES 

In  these  words  the  great  Dean  accurately 
reflected  the  attitude  of  his  day.  Alas  that 
the  words  should  have  continued  so  consist- 
ently to  reflect  the  attitudes  of  succeeding 
days! 

As  late  as  Mendelssohn's  generation  that 
gentleman  was  treated  like  a  lackey,  even  in 
the  land  where  professional  musicians  have 
always  met  with  unusual  consideration.  Men- 
delssohn was  once  bidden  to  play  for  the 
Grand  Duchess  of  Weimar.  He  went  to  the 
palace  with  Frau  Goethe,  was  asked  his  name 
at  the  door  by  a  servant,  and  while  his  com- 
panion was  ushered  upstairs  he  was  taken 
into  a  small  makeshift  cloak-room  and  told 
to  wait  there  until  his  services  should  be  re- 
quired. After  cooling  his  heels  thus  for  al- 
most an  hour,  one  is  glad  to  know  that  the 
"  music  "  started  up  in  wrath,  seized  its  hat, 
and  in  spite  of  all  that  the  agonized  lackeys 
could  do  or  say,  bolted  across  the  fields  to 
the  friendly  shelter  of  Goethe's  roof.  The 
story  goes  that  after  this  incident  Hummel, 
[167  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

the  court  musician,  was  shown  a  little  more 
respect  in  Weimar. 

Not  many  years  ago  the  custom  still  pre- 
vailed at  private  musicales  of  stretching  a 
rope  between  the  musicians  and  their  "  bet- 
ters," like  the  humiliating  rail  on  shipboard 
separating  first  cabin  from  second.  It  is  said 
that  Lablache  is  responsible  for  the  passing 
of  this  odious  custom.  As  he  came  up  to  sing 
in  a  certain  great  house  the  rope  attracted 
his  attention.  He  stooped  quickly  and  threw 
it  aside  with  a  look  of  disgust.  It  never  re- 
appeared in  that  house  and  little  by  little 
thereafter  the  thing  grew  to  be  bad  form. 
But  the  ghost  of  the  rope  remained.  The 
poor  professional  still  stumbles  across  it  at 
every  turn.  It  makes  his  life  very  bitter. 
"  Ach,"  sighed  an  old  violinist  in  my  hearing, 
"  it  is  hard  to  be  condemned  for  life  to  Sing- 
Sing;  but  it's  yet  harder  to  be  condemned  for 
life  to  play-play  !  " 

To  be  frank,  the  professional  feels  that  so- 
ciety still  looks  upon  him,  with  the  haughty 
[168  ] 


WHAT  THE  AMATEUR  ESCAPES 

Elizabethans,  as  little  better  than  a  servant. 
This  drawback,  added  to  those  which  the 
musical  temperament  naturally  brings,  often 
turns  him  against  his  very  art  and  so  robs 
him  of  his  last  solace. 

Why  should  these  things  be  ?  The  reasons 
are  manifold;  and  the  musician  himself  is 
not  wholly  without  blame. 

In  the  first  place,  music  is  a  convenient 
pretext  for  street  begging.  The  mendicant 
class  has  twanged  and  scraped  and  blatted 
so  diligently  on  our  curbs  that  people  have 
come,  thoughtlessly  enough,  to  associate  the 
sight  of  instruments  on  the  streets  with  an 
outstretched  cap.  It  follows  that  the  musician 
is  made  to  feel  almost  a  sense  of  disgrace 
in  carrying  a  violin-box  along  Fifth  Avenue, 
and  the  hotel  porter  looks  as  askance  at  a 
'cello-bag  as  he  would  at  a  carpet-bag. 

It  was  a  sad  day  for  me  when  I  came  to 
learn  this  grievous  truth.  In  graduating  from 
the  inconspicuous  flute  to  the  dignity  of  car- 
rying a  'cello,  not  a  little  of  my  joy  and 
[  169] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

pride  was  in  the  apparency  of  the  new  instru- 
ment. I  conceived  the  music-loving  public 
as  a  vast  democracy  that  adored  Bach  and 
Beethoven  and  looked  with  mingled  respect 
and  gratitude  upon  those  who  could  make 
these  masters  live  again.  I  confidently  be- 
lieved that  one  could  scarcely  stir  out  of  doors 
with  such  an  evident  emblem  of  musicianship 
as  a  'cello  without  meeting  sympathetic  stran- 
ger eyes  and  fraternal  smiles  every  block  or 
so.  To  my  youthful  imagination  the  musical 
world  was  a  thousand  times  larger  than  it 
actually  is,  and  constituted  such  an  immense 
free-masonry  that  any  one  who  displayed  a 
visible  badge  of  the  order  like  mine  could 
hardly  fail  of  a  right  royal  welcome.  Alas  !  I 
had  to  look  long  for  that  first  pair  of  sympa- 
thetic eyes.  Most  of  the  eyes  looked  at  my 
precious  instrument  as  askance  as  if  it  had 
been  a  peddler's  pack.  In  a  series  of  crescendo 
pangs  the  shocking  truth  was  borne  in  upon 
me  that  a  'cello-bag  was  considered  by  the 
world  at  large  less  a  distinction  than  a  de- 
[170] 


WHAT  THE  AMATEUR  ESCAPES 

gradation.  The  climactic  pang  came  one  day 
when  I  was  accosted  in  highly  contemptuous 
language  as  a  "  dago  musician  "  by  a  motor- 
man  and  vigorously  invited  to  get  off  his  plat- 
form with  "that  there  banjo."  Thereupon 
my  tailor's  account  suddenly  grew  while  that 
at  the  music  store  correspondingly  dwindled, 
and,  for  some  time,  whenever  I  had  occasion 
to  take  the  'cello  from  under  the  shelter  of 
a  friendly  roof  I  called  a  cab.  Then  it  was 
that  I  began  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart 
to  pity  the  poor  professionals  who  could  not 
always  afford  cabs  and  who  had  to  expose 
their  'cellos  to  the  hostile  glare  of  the  igno- 
rantly  snobbish  world  a  hundred  times  to  the 
amateur's  once. 

Not  long  ago  an  old  master  of  mine,  a  well- 
beloved  American  'cellist  whom  many  Ger- 
mans believe  to  be  the  foremost  living  cham- 
ber-musician, was  turned  away  from  the 
door  of  a  leading  New  York  hotel  because  he 
held  under  his  arm  what  in  Germany  would 
have  been  for  him  as  a  patent  of  nobility,  — 
[171] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

his  Stradivarius.  A  folding  harp,  a  telescopic 
double-bass,  a  collapsible  tuba,  —  the  in- 
ventor of  these  might  claim  a  pedestal  little 
lower  than  Saint  Cecelia's. 

In  our  land  of  wealth-worship  the  musician's 
poverty  has  dragged  his  name  down  almost  as 
effectually  as  that  of  his  rival  on  the  curb.  The 
prosperous  middle  class  of  musicians  standing 
between  the  handful  of  opulent  singers  and 
virtuosi  and  the  army  of  the  financially  embar- 
rassed is  pitifully  small.  Members  of  even  the 
subsidized  orchestras  in  cities  like  Boston,  Chi- 
cago and  Philadelphia  have  no  easy  time  of  it ; 
but  in  such  places  as  New  York  the  player's 
problem  is  appalling.  There,  even  by  eking 
out  his  work  in  the  symphony  orchestra  with 
various  painful  and  humiliating  expedients 
it  is  hardly  possible  for  him  to  reach  the 
standard  of  living  which  the  dignity  of  his 
art  demands.  The  situation  is  complicated 
further  by  the  attitude  of  the  Musical  Union 
which  insists  that  the  musician  shall  be  re- 
garded as  an  artisan  rather  than  as  an  artist. 
[  172  ] 


WHAT  THE   AMATEUR  ESCAPES 

Another  reason  why  the  professional  fid- 
dler's black  eye  has  not  yet  been  cured  is 
that  the  technic  of  his  art  makes  such  exor- 
bitant demands  upon  him.  In  early  youth  he 
becomes  convinced  that  in  these  days  of  whirl- 
wind virtuosity  a  life  of  solid  etudes  will 
barely  suffice  to  make  him  master  of  his  craft. 
So  he  takes  the  cash  of  technic  and  lets  the 
credit  of  culture  go,  thereby  perhaps  missing 
the  one  thing  needful  to  make  him  a  master, 
— and  even  a  gentleman. 

The  musician's  proverbial  egotism  has  not 
helped  his  popularity.  This  was  born,  to- 
gether with  his  improvidence,  in  the  old  days 
of  servitude,  when  he  found  that  though 
his  lips  might  falter  at  the  mouthpiece  he 
must  blow  his  own  horn,  or  go  supperless  to 
bed,  for  no  one  else  would  blow  it  for  him. 
There  is  a  story  of  a  kettledrummer  who 
applied  for  an  orchestral  position.  "Sir," 
he  declared,  "I  am  the  greatest  drummer 
known  to  history."  "How  can  you  prove 
that?"  asked  the  astonished  conductor.  "I 
[173] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

don't  have  to  prove  it,"  was  the  answer ;  "  I 
admit  it." 

Among  various  instances  of  Chopin's  con- 
ceit, George  Sand  has  told  us  how  he  directed 
in  his  will  that  he  should  be  buried  in  a  white 
tie,  small  shoes,  and  short  breeches.  In  view 
of  which,  that  naive  egotist  De  Pachmann 
speaks  truer  than  he  perhaps  realizes  when 
he  informs  the  audience  that  the  spirit  of 
Chopin  has  descended  upon  him.  A  curious 
instance  of  musical  megalomania  is  shown  in 
Richard  Strauss's  tone-poem,  A  Hero's  Life, 
which  contains  a  section  called  "  The  Hero's 
Works  of  Peace."  This  proves  on  examin- 
ation to  be  nothing  but  Pieces  of  the  Hero's 
Works,  the  hero  being  the  composer,  who  ad- 
mitted when  asked  that  the  whole  work  was 
faithful  autobiography. 

Society  at  large  is  slow  to  make  allow- 
ances for  this  sort  of  thing ;  but  perhaps  its 
heart  will  expand  as  the  musician's  swollen 
head  contracts,  and  it  will  come  to  realize 
that  under  the  present  primitive  conditions  a 
[174] 


WHAT  THE  AMATEUR  ESCAPES 

certain  amount  of  self-assurance  is  needed  to 
goad  the  musical  mare  into  any  sort  of  action. 

Again,  the  appearance  of  the  musician 
often  helps  to  hold  his  fellow  men  aloof. 
But  for  the  phenomenon  of  musical  hair  so- 
ciety is  largely  responsible.  There  is  a  sound 
financial  reason  here  for  sharps  rather  than 
flats.  Woe  to  the  bald  virtuoso  who  should 
endeavor  to  fight  his  way  to  fame  without  a 
wig.  For,  according  to  the  popular  concep- 
tion, the  wealth  of  a  musical  temperament 
may  only  be  safeguarded  by  an  abundance 
of  locks.  Thus  the  Circassians  must  be  of  all 
peoples  the  most  musical. 

Now  the  virtuoso  does  not  indulge  in  long 
hair  because  he  likes  it,  qua  hair,  but  because 
it  is  a  thousand  times  more  expensive  for  him 
to  have  it  cut  than  for  other  people,  and  he 
is  a  comparatively  poor  man.  One  of  the 
world's  greatest  pianists  when  at  home  on  his 
Polish  estate  is  as  well  shorn  as  a  Chicago 
business  man;  but  his  manager  absolutely 
refuses  to  let  him  appear  in  public  until  the 
[175  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

silky  crop  has  reached  a  certain  long  mini- 
mum. 

Thus,  too,  in  matters  of  dress  the  fiddler 
thinks  he  must  adopt  the  Shavian  motto : 
"  Anything  for  a  rise  !  "  A  bit  of  carpet  is 
just  as  well  for  a  necktie ;  the  coat  should 
be  in  the  style  of  the  eighteenth  century ; 
and  the  average  matinee  audience  would 
doubtless  be  delighted  if  the  virtuoso  were 
to  fiddle  barefooted  or  in  riding-boots.  In 
one  of  his  letters  Stevenson  has  made  an  apt 
observation  on  this  popular  appetite  for  eccen- 
tricity :  "  So  long  as  an  artist  is  on  his  head, 
is  painting  with  a  flute,  or  writes  with  an 
etcher's  needle,  or  conducts  the  orchestra 
with  a  meat-axe,  all  is  well  and  plaudits 
shower  along  with  the  roses.  But  any  plain 
man  who  tries  to  follow  the  obtrusive  canons 
of  his  art  is  but  a  commonplace  figure.  To 
h —  with  him  is  the  motto,  or  at  least  not 
that;  for  he  will  have  his  reward,  but  he 
will  never  be  thought  a  person  of  parts." 

Long  hair,  however,  has  an  emotional  as 
[176] 


WHAT  THE  AMATEUR  ESCAPES 

well  as  a  financial  aspect.  There  is  not  a 
little  modern  significance  in  the  legend  of  the 
Thracian  ladies  who  paid  the  musician  Or- 
pheus such  energetic  court  as  to  destroy  him  ; 
and  much  of  the  fiddler's  moral  notoriety 
is  due  to  the  effect  of  certain  music  which 
tends  to  invert  sex  characteristics  and  to 
make  woman  the  aggressor.  The  path  of 
many  a  musician  is  strewn  with  a  kind  of 
temptation  of  which  most  men  know  no- 
thing, and  he  who  comes  from  the  fire  with 
clean  garments  after  the  sound  of  the  flute, 
harp,  sackbut,  psaltery,  and  all  kinds  of  mu- 
sic has  had  its  effect,  is  made  of  stern  stuff 
indeed. 

Often  the  musician's  charm  is  short-cir- 
cuited for  his  adorers  from  his  occupation  to 
its  badge,  as  with  the  soldier  and  his  brass 
buttons,  so  that  his  power,  like  Samson's,  is 
as  the  square  of  his  distance  from  the  barber. 

The  extraordinary  number  of  divorces  in 
the  world  of  music  is  due  in  part  to  the  cus- 
toms of  Thrace,  which  have  made  possible 
[177  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

such  a  newspaper  paragraph  as  the  follow- 
ing: 

"  Last  evening,  for  the  first  time  in  Amer- 
ica, at  the  second  of  these  concerts,  Mme.  X. 
performed  the  third  concerto  of  her  fourth 
husband." 

All  these  factors,  then :  —  the  remnants  of 
a  menial  past,  the  musical  beggars,  the  pov- 
erty of  the  profession,  the  ideals  of  the  Mu- 
sical Union,  an  overspecialization  in  technic 
resulting  in  lack  of  culture,  egotism  and  eccen- 
tricity, and  the  peculiarly  emotional  nature 
of  the  art  — these  have  kept  down  the  Ameri- 
can musician's  social  status  and  retarded  the 
evolution  of  our  music  in  two  chief  ways.  In 
the  first  place,  Americans  have  been  led  to 
believe  that  no  one  can  be  a  genuine  virtuoso 
except  a  freak  with  a  harsh  foreign  name, 
and  been  led  to  adopt  the  German's  absurd 
attitude  toward  the  American  musical  temper- 
ament. In  the  second  place,  the  American 
musician  has  found  that  well-nigh  his  only 
hope  of  success  lies  in  masquerading  as  a 
[178] 


WHAT  THE  AMATEUR  ESCAPES 

foreigner.  Smith  must  become  Smithski  and 
live  in  mortal  fear,  knowing  that  when  once 
his  incognito  is  pricked  and  the  shameful 
secret  of  his  nativity  exposed,  the  bubble  of 
his  fame  will  vanish,  and  he  will  then  have 
to  support  life  at  two  dollars  a  lesson,  with 
hotel  engagements  in  the  summer. 

Barnum  was  right.  "  The  American  public 
delights  to  be  fooled";  and  nowhere  has  it 
proved  simpler  than  in  accepting  for  itself 
European  standards  in  music,  with  no  correc- 
tion for  possible  differences  of  national  tem- 
perament. Even  if  certain  foreigners  had  no 
financial  reasons  for  swearing  that  our  players 
are  cold  and  hard  and  have  "  kein  Ilerz" 
we  might  well  ask  ourselves  whether  we  are 
not  inclined  to  be  emotionally  saner  in  our 
playing  than  Europeans,  whether  we  do  not 
therefore  strike  almost  as  often  as  they  an 
ideal  balance  of  head  and  heart,  and  whether 
our  native  dash  and  youthfulness,  our  nerve, 
initiative,  optimism,  humor,  and  sporting 
spirit  are  after  all  to  count  for  nothing.  Mu- 
[  179] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

sic  is  the  universal  language.  Why  should 
we  insist  on  a  foreign  accent?  But  we  do 
insist  on  it ;  and  with  passion. 

The  situation  of  an  American  in  one  of 
our  excellent  "  American  "  orchestras  is  pit- 
iable enough,  unless  he  happens  to  be  an 
amateur  and  goes  into  it  temporarily  in  a  di- 
lettante spirit  of  adventure.  Musically  he  is 
despised  by  every  one  on  the  a  priori  ground 
of  his  nationality.  Socially  he  is  ostracized, 
both  by  society,  which  considers  him  a  pro- 
fessional musician,  and  by  the  orchestra, 
which  considers  him  no  musician  at  all.  He 
is  in  the  position  of  Rubinstein,  who  com- 
plained that  the  Russians  called  him  a  Pole, 
the  Poles  a  Jew,  and  the  Jews  a  Gentile. 

We  have  done  our  native  music  incalcu- 
lable harm  by  accepting  the  dictum  of  pa- 
triotic foreigners  on  our  own  art.  But  a  Ger- 
man philosopher  has  pointed  out  our  mistake 
to  us. 

The  anonymous  author  of  Rembrandt  als 
Erzieher  shows  us  the  reason  why  the  mod- 
[  180  ] 


WHAT  THE   AMATEUR  ESCAPES 

ern  German  treats  his  native  professionals  so 
considerately  and  honors  with  such  eagerness 
anything  that  promises  to  benefit  the  national 
musical  life.  The  German  does  so  because 
he  agrees  with  the  author's  thesis  that  true 
art  must  be  national  through  and  through 
and  that  the  artist  should  be  honored  as  a 
natural  aristocrat. 

"  The  aristocratic  character  of  all  Art  .  .  . 
is  deeply  grounded,  and  may  be  vindicated 
from  several  different  viewpoints.  In  the 
first  place,  Art  is  aristocratic  because  it  serves 
the  higher  interests  of  humanity,  which  are 
earnestly  taken  to  heart  only  by  a  small  por- 
tion of  mankind.  It  is  aristocratic,  as  well, 
because  it  requires  independence  above  all  (it 
is  more  aristocratic  to  stand  upon  one's  own 
feet  than  to  make  one's  self  the  slave  of  for- 
eign theories) ;  and,  finally,  because  every 
spiritual  as  well  as  every  political  nobleman 
springs  from  the  native  soil  and  is  attached 
to  it.  .  .  .  'He  is  made  of  earth.'  That  the 
native-born  stands  higher,  is  more  important, 
[181] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

and  in  every  respect  more  remarkable  and 
significant  than  the  naturalized  citizen,  may 
be  put  down  ...  as  a  spiritual  and  artistic 
as  well  as  a  political  truth." 

It  is  because  the  Germans  have  ideas  like 
these  that  they  treat  their  own  musicians  so 
well  and  criticise  ours  so  harshly.  If  they 
should  carry  this  spirit  into  commerce,  we 
would  reciprocate  promptly  and  vigorously. 
As  we  have  aped  them  in  other  musical  mat- 
ters, would  it  not  be  at  least  consistent  to  go 
one  step  further  and  give  our  own  musicians 
as  much  of  artistic  and  social  consideration 
as  the  Germans  give  theirs  ?  Ours  need  it  far 
more. 

Heaven  forbid  that  we  should  embrace  any 
such  narrowing  and  egotistical  philosophy  as 
this  of  the  author  of  HembrandtalsUrzieher. 
But  even  this  extreme  would  be  better  than 
to  keep  on  as  slaves  of  the  "  foreign  theory  " 
that  we  are  musically  nil,  and  to  continue 
estimating  the  performances  of  our  debu- 
tantes,—  whom  having  not  seen  we  love  and 
[182] 


WHAT  THE  AMATEUR  ESCAPES 

hate,  —  by  the  standards  of  Berlin  and  Paris, 
not  by  our  own.  In  music  we  have  no  stand- 
ards of  our  own  —  no  individualism  what- 
ever. We  do  not  stand  on  our  own  feet,  but 
howl  when  the  Continental  shoe  pinches.  We 
do  not  demand  so  much  that  a  man  shall  be 
a  musician  as  that  he  shall  have  been  well 
received  on  the  Continent.  It  is  easy  to  see 
how  destructive  such  servility  is  to  our  native 
music  and  to  our  best  native  musicians,  —  as 
witness  the  fate  of  Edward  Mac  do  well.  For 
the  American  virtuoso  must  learn  to  pander 
to  the  tastes  of  Europeans  —  and  thereby  di- 
vest himself  of  various  national  characteris- 
tics —  before  he  can  fill  his  scrap-book  with 
the  press-clippings  necessary  for  a  successful 
descent  upon  New  York. 

Theodore  Thomas  was  one  who  saw  clearly 
the  evils  of  our  attitude,  and  fought  them 
almost  from  the  time  when  he  had  to  fiddle 
in  a  New  York  saloon  to  keep  himself  from 
starvation.  He  never  tired  of  preaching  the 
revolutionary  doctrine  that  a  musician  may 
[183  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

be  a  normal-looking,  normal-acting,  perfectly 
respectable  American  and  yet  speak  the  univer- 
sal language  with  a  silver  tongue ;  that  Sher- 
wood, Powell  and  Norton  (whom  men,  alas  ! 
call  Nordica)  deserve  honors  fully  as  high  as 
any  Pugno  or  Petschnikoff  or  Melba.  He  him- 
self set  an  example  of  unostentation  even  when 
a  little  "  side"  would  have  seemed  justifiable 
in  one  of  the  leaders  of  his  time  ;  and  he 
never  tolerated  f  reakishness  among  his  men. 
In  this  way,  Thomas  and  a  few  other  high- 
minded  Americans  have  recently  brought 
about  a  gratifying  change  in  the  social  status 
of  the  native  professional.  The  conviction 
which  seems  gradually  spreading  that  a  cul- 
tured man  will  eventually  make  a  better  mu- 
sician than  a  barbarian,  other  things  being 
anything  like  equal,  is  another  hopeful  sign 
of  the  times.  Even  in  view  of  the  progressive 
demands  on  technic,  we  seem  to  be  passing 
out  of  the  stage  of  over-specialization,  and 
music  is  attracting  an  increasing  number  of 
college  men. 

[184] 


WHAT  THE  AMATEUR  ESCAPES 

As  one  more  pleasant  symptom  of  progress, 
the  philanthropist  is  awaking  to  the  fact  that 
the  symphony  orchestra  is  one  of  the  most 
potent  vehicles  of  popular  education,  and  that 
an  American  orchestra  worthy  of  the  name 
must,  as  yet,  be  liberally  backed. 

Thus  it  appears  that  both  the  public  and 
the  music-maker  are  gradually  learning  to 
lessen  some  of  the  drawbacks  of  the  profes- 
sional's calling  and  are  combining  to  hasten 
the  day  when  he  may  be  permitted  to  take 
his  place  in  our  democracy,  not  as  a  bizarre 
mountebank,  but  as  a  gifted  brother. 

One  of  the  chief  drawbacks  which  the  ama- 
teur so  happily  escapes  must  be  reserved,  how- 
ever, for  the  following  chapter. 


X 

THE  MUSICIAN'S  PARASITE 

"Doctor,"  said  the  sick-looking  man  in  the 
fur  coat,  "suppose  a  man  had  an  irregular 
throbbing  behind  his  left  ear,  a  low  fever, 
and  a  heavy  feeling  all  over  ;  what  do  you 
think  he  should  take  for  it  ?  " 

"My  friend,"  said  the  physician,  "  it  seems 
to  me  that  he  should  take  advice." 

Fisher,  the  famous  oboeist,  had  several 
times  been  asked  to  the  house  of  a  noble  lord 
in  Dublin,  ostensibly  to  dine,  but  really  —  as 
it  developed  —  to  make  music  for  the  guests. 
The  musician  decided  to  show  a  little  charac- 
ter. When  invited  again  he  accepted  with 
pleasure.  "Don't  forget  to  bring  along  the 
oboe,"  said  the  nobleman  in  an  offhand  way. 
"Many  thanks,  my  lord,"  answered  Fisher, 
"  but  my  oboe  never  dines." 
[186] 


THE   MUSICIAN'S  PARASITE 

Kullak  was  once  forced  upon  the  piano- 
stool  after  dining  with  a  wealthy  shoe  manu- 
facturer in  Berlin.  Some  time  after  this  he 
entertained  the  leather  king,  and  when  they 
left  the  table  the  musician  brought  out  a 
pair  of  aged  boots  and  presented  them  to 
the  other  with  ceremony.  The  manufacturer 
looked  bewildered.  "What  in  heaven's  name 
shall  I  do  with  these  ?  "  he  asked.  "  Not  long 
ago,"  replied  Kullak  with  a  charming  smile, 
"  you  asked  me  to  ply  my  trade  on  your 
music^thirsty  guests.  Now,  as  it  happens,  my 
boots  need  a  little  free  cobbling." 

"  I  greatly  regret,"  wrote  Harold  Bauer 
to  a  notorious  musical  sponge,  "that  I  am 
obliged  to  decline  your  kind  invitation  to 
dinner,  as  I  have  cut  my  thumb." 

Now  if  the  profession  will  only  take  a  line 
from  such  strong  characters  as  these  —  cost 
what  agonies  it  may  —  the  musician's  parasite 
will  soon  be  exterminated  and  the  art  freed 
from  one  of  its  most  serious  drawbacks.  I 
fear,  however,  that  the  musical  temperament 
[187  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

is  as  a  rule  too  shrinkingly  sensitive  ever  to 
prevail  against  the  hard-shell  hostess. 

By  their  tangible  nature  the  productive 
arts  preclude  a  great  deal  of  sponging.  Time 
after  time  the  hostess  will  invite  a  profes- 
sional music-maker  with  the  deliberate  pur- 
pose of  putting  him  in  a  position  where  he 
will  have  to  entertain  her  guests  an  entire 
evening.  But  she  has  not  yet  developed  the 
assurance  to  beg  for  "  just  a  tiny  fresco  on 
my  library  ceiling  "  from  Mr.  Alexander,  or 
a  modest  bronze  statuette  from  Mr.  French, 
or  the  price  of  an  Atlantic  essay  from  Mr. 
Crothers. 

The  interpreter  of  music  seems  to  be  the 
one  artist  whose  victimization  is  sanctioned 
by  society.  This,  I  suppose,  is  because  his 
product  is  invisible,  and  it  is  hard  for  the 
children  of  a  materialistic  age  properly  to 
value  "  the  things  that  are  not  seen." 

It  does  seem  a  bit  curious,  though,  that 
a  practical,  money-making  age  should  ar- 
rive at  the  conclusion  that  the  fiddler  ought 
[  188] 


THE   MUSICIAN'S  PARASITE 

to  pay  taxes  for  the  privilege  of  living  with 
his  lovely  art.  For  the  public  no  more  con- 
siders how  he  shall  live  with  it  than  it  specu- 
lates on  the  diet  of  the  harping  seraphim.  It 
simply  inverts  the  tramp's  philosophy,  be- 
lieving that  the  musician  owes  it  a  tune. 

The  hostess  who  asks  a  violinist  to  dinner 
qua  violinist,  does  him  a  manifold  wrong. 
His  feelings  are  hurt,  for  a  player  regards 
his  art  with  an  impersonal  and  jealous  eye. 

There  lurks  in  every  fiddler  a  green-eyed 
monster,  the  stern  censor  of  all  invitations. 
To  prefer  his  fiddle  to  him  is  to  strike  at  the 
inherent  dignity  of  his  manhood.  To  feed 
him  in  exchange  for  his  services  is  to  place 
him  on  the  same  footing  with  the  stranger 
within  the  back  gate.  If  he  is  a  true  artist, 
the  food  will  choke  him. 

After  hurting  his  feelings,  the  irresistible 
hostess  "  holds  him  up  "  for  perhaps  five,  — 
perhaps  five  thousand  —  dollars'  worth  of  his 
time  and  strength.  "But,"  some  one  will 
object,  "  he  enjoys  his  music  so  !  "  The  ox 
[  189] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

doubtless  takes  a  certain  animal  pleasure  in 
treading  out  the  corn,  but  the  artist  seldom 
enjoys  his  work  under  such  forced  condi- 
tions. Besides,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  play  of  the  amateur  is  the  toil  of  the  pro- 
fessional. What  right  have  I  to  ask  a  man 
to  take  of  his  precious  nerve  and  buoyancy 
and  enthusiasm  —  the  virtue  of  his  heart 
and  brain  —  and  "give,  hoping  for  nothing 
again  "  ?  His  means  of  life  and  his  hope  of 
glory  depend  on  the  very  thing  for  which  I 
so  lightly  ask. 

The  musician's  parasite  may  repair  these 
wrongs  by  engaging  the  victim  for  her  next 
musicale.  But  no ;  the  guests  are  too  famil- 
iar with  his  playing,  and  graft  breeds  con- 
tempt. So  she  engages  some  less  obliging 
person,  some  canny  Kullak  or  Fisher,  whom 
it  is  impossible  to  victimize.  She  has  hurt  and 
robbed  her  friend  the  violinist,  and  now  she 
deals  the  unkindest  cut  of  all  —  she  cheapens 
him ;  that  is,  she  simply  extends  her  two 
former  attentions  into  the  indefinite  future. 
[190] 


THE  MUSICIAN'S  PARASITE 

The  musician  is  often  quite  as  much  at 
the  mercy  of  his  guests  as  at  that  of  his  hosts. 
"  Please  play  something."  The  request  rises 
automatically  to  the  lips  of  visitors.  Indeed, 
they  seem  to  think  that  they  are  behaving 
with  scant  courtesy  if  they  leave  without 
looting  their  host  of  his  stock  in  trade.  But 
how  they  would  stare  if  some  fellow  caller 
at  their  friend  the  architect's  should  insist 
on  having  the  latter  "design  something"  for 
their  entertainment. 

"  Save  me  from  my  friends !  "  cried  the 
aged  Kant.  "  Save  me  from  my  friends  !  " 
is  the  cry  of  the  professional  musician  the 
world  over. 

The  more  eminent  the  musician,  the  more 
eager  is  the  frugal  parasite  to  taste  his  wares. 
If  he  has  the  misfortune  to  be  a  man  of  such 
authority  that  his  judgment  is  accepted  as 
final  throughout  the  nation,  as  is  the  judg- 
ment of  some  great  consulting  engineer  in 
his  own  sphere,  then  the  nation  considers 
him  bound  to  give  all  applicants  the  best 
[191] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

that  he  has  without  Demeaning  the  transac- 
tion by  mercenary  considerations.  One  of 
the  leading  American  authorities  on  musical 
education  has  devoted  what  has  amounted  to 
months  of  an  overdriven  life  to  conferences 
with  people  who  have  come  from  every  part 
of  the  country  to  seek  his  expert  advice.  And 
though  he  has  by  his  counsels  saved  these 
inquirers  many  thousands  of  dollars  he  has 
confessed  that  not  a  twentieth  part  of  them 
ever  even  inquired  whether  they  were  in- 
debted to  him.  In  these  cases  he  always  re- 
plied in  surprise  and  delight  that  he  had 
been  only  too  glad  to  be  of  service. 

Thus  far  we  have  assumed  that  the  musi- 
cian has  not  been  called  upon  to  lower  the 
standards  of  his  art.  Though  host  and  guest 
and  stranger  have  imposed  upon  him,  a  mu- 
sical environment,  at  least,  has  not  been 
lacking.  There  has  always  been  an  adequate 
instrument,  a  sympathetic  accompanist,  the 
proper  acoustic  qualities,  a  silent  and  appre- 
ciative audience.  One  may  play  even  "  Hearts 
[192] 


THE  MUSICIAN'S  PARASITE 

and  Flowers  "  under  such  conditions  without 
grossly  violating  his  artistic  conscience.  But 
a  lower  order  of  parasite  is  far  more  com- 
mon. She  invites  a  pianist  to  meet  a  few 
friends  at  dinner.  Suddenly  a  time-honored 
instrument  is  opened  —  some  old  virginal, 
perhaps,  with  a  damaged  reputation  —  and 
the  artist  is  very  audibly  urged  to  perform. 
"I'm  afraid  it  isn't  in  perfect  tune,"  de- 
clares the  hostess,  with  a  note  of  challenge 
in  her  voice,  "  but  if  you  don't  mind  I  'm 
sure  no  one  else  will."  It  is  not  often  that 
the  musician  at  bay  has  the  hardihood  to  vie 
with  such  discourtesy  and  make  answer  as 
Chopin  once  did :  "  Ah,  madame,  I  have  just 
dined.  Your  hospitality  I  see  demands  pay- 
ment "  ;  or  as  that  downright  and  dauntless 
soul  did  who  pleaded :  "  But  really,  you 
know,  I  did  n't  eat  very  much."  The  other 
guests  feel  obliged  to  enter  the  conspiracy, 
and  the  pianist  faces  the  alternative  of  antag- 
onizing his  friends  or  torturing  his  ears.  In 
either  case  he  is  almost  certain  to  injure  his 
[193] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

reputation,  —  as  a  good  fellow  on  the  one 
hand,  or  as  a  good  musician  on  the  other. 
For  forced  playing  under  bad  conditions  is 
bound  to  lower  a  man's  prestige,  no  matter 
how  loudly  those  present  protest  that  they 
are  making  due  allowances  for  his  handicaps. 
They  are  not.  They  have  not  imagination 
enough. 

Besides,  the  handicaps  are  never  all  ap- 
parent. Perhaps  our  pianist  has  just  been  on 
a  hard  journey,  or  been  ill,  or  engaged  in  a 
violent  fit  of  composition,  or  has  been  getting 
himself  out  of  practice  by  any  other  of  the 
thousand  and  one  approved  methods.  The 
chances  are  that  the  audience  will  form  just 
as  "  snap  "  judgments  on  his  playing  as  if 
he  were  deliberately  appearing  in  a  well  an- 
nounced concert  for  which  he  had  been  six 
months  in  training. 

Perhaps  the  unfortunate  is  a  'cellist  and  is 

bullied  into  going  home  for  his  'cello.  The 

odds  are  three  to  one  that  he  must  play  on  a 

carpet  thick  enough  to  absorb  one  half  of 

[194] 


THE   MUSICIAN'S   PARASITE 

his  tone ;  four  to  one  that  he  will  have  to 
alter  the  pitch  of  the  strings  enough  to  ruin 
their  quality  for  the  evening;  five  to  one 
that  the  piano  is  false  enough  to  make  him 
sound  out  of  tune ;  ten  to  one  that  the  im- 
promptu accompanist  cannot  soar  beyond  the 
A  B  C  of  'cello  literature, and  will  "follow" 
him  literally,  viz.,  about  half  a  beat  behind, 
so  that  he  must  hale  her  through  the  evening 
by  the  spiritual  hair.  The  talkative  guest 
will  be  there  in  force,  and  at  the  emotional 
climax  (if  there  be  one)  enter  the  maid  with 
ices  as  punctually  as  the  moral  in  an  observ- 
ation by  Dr.  Johnson. 

For  the  benefit  of  the  cornered  musician 
whose  heredity  and  environment  have  made 
it  impossible  to  follow  Chopin's  example  and 
vie  with  his  host  in  rudeness,  Crowest  in  his 
book  of  musical  anecdotes  has  recorded  a 
practical  cure  for  parasitism  :  "  There  was  a 
shabby  couple  who  desired  to  have  the  eclat 
of  engaging  the  celebrated  English  prima 
donna,  Mary  Ann  Paton,  to  sing  at  one  of 
[195] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

their  parties,  and  sent  her  an  invitation. 
Being  indisposed,  she  declined;  but  so  ur- 
gently was  she  pressed  that  she  consented  to 
join  the  party.  When  the  entertainments  of 
the  evening  had  fairly  commenced,  and  sev- 
eral ladies  among  the  visitors  had  sung,  the 
hostess  invited  Miss  Paton  to  seat  herself  at 
the  piano,  as  the  company  would  be  delighted 
to  hear  her  beautiful  voice ;  but  the  singer, 
with  a  very  serious  countenance,  begged  to 
be  excused.  At  first  the  astonishment  created 
by  this  refusal  was  evinced  by  a  dead  silence 
and  a  fixed  stare,  but  at  length  the  disap- 
pointed hostess  burst  out,  saying,  '  What ! 
not  sing,  Miss  Paton  ?  Why,  it  was  for  this 
that  I  invited  you  to  my  party,  and  I  told  all 
my  guests  that  you  were  coming.'  '  That 
quite  alters  the  case,'  said  the  other ;  '  I  was 
not  at  all  aware  of  this,  or  I  should  not  have 
refused  ;  but  since  you  have  invited  me  pro- 
fessionally, I  shall  of  course  sing  immedi- 
ately.' *  What  a  good  creature ! '  rejoined 
the  hostess;  *  I  thought  you  could  not  per- 
[196] 


THE  MUSICIAN'S   PARASITE 

sist  in  refusing  me.'  So  Miss  Paton  sang  the 
entire  evening,  giving  every  song  she  was 
asked  for,  and  being  encored  several  times. 
In  the  morning,  to  the  utter  astonishment  of 
the  parsimonious  couple,  a  bill  for  two  hun- 
dred dollars  was  presented  to  them,  for  pro- 
fessional services,  which  of  course  they  had 
to  pay." 

In  olden  times  it  was  the  musician,  the 
poor  vagabond  fiddler,  who  was  the  para' 
sitos,  the  eater  at  another's  table.  To-day  it 
is  the  musician  who  occupies  the  head  of  the 
board  and  dispenses  spiritual  meat  and  drink 
to  his  former  patrons.  1  think  that  it  must 
be  some  vague  realization  of  the  grim  humor 
of  this  reversal  that  has  turned  the  vagabond 
fiddler  into  such  a  recklessly  magnificent  en- 
tertainer of  bejeweled  parasites. 

But  the  situation  is  not  as  ugly  as  it  ap- 
pears, and  the  musician  is  not  the  one  to 
harbor  malice.  For  he  realizes  that  the  para- 
site does  not  mean  to  be  dishonorable,  and 
is,  in  fact,  merely  thoughtless  and  naive.  In 
[197  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

a  dim  way  he  realizes  that  his  wrongs  have 
persisted  mainly  because  he  belongs  to  an 
inarticulate  tribe,  too  easy-going  to  complain 
clearly  and  forcibly.  And  he  has  trusted  all 
along  that  if  a  champion  should  arise,  ungal- 
lant  and  voluble  enough  to  voice  his  woes, 
they  would 

"  softly  and  suddenly  vanish  away 
And  never  be  met  with  again." 


XI 

THE  MUSICAL  PHAKMACT 

**  What  passion  cannot  Music  raise  and  quell  ? 

Dbyden. 

"  the  sullen  Cares 
And  frantic  Passions  hear  thy  soft  controul." 

Gray. 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  music  is  apt  to  give 
its  devotees  indigestion,  and  make  them  de- 
spised and  rejected  of  men,  and  half  bury 
them  under  a  small  avalanche  of  the  other 
woes  which  we  have  been  considering.  And 
yet  this  art  has  the  remarkable  power  of 
allaying  the  ills  itself  has  caused.  It  is  like 
modern  warfare  which  tenderly  gathers  up 
the  wounded  from  the  battlefield,  conveys 
them  to  hospitals  modern  in  every  respect, 
and  there  tries  as  hard  to  cure  as  it  had  tried 
to  kill. 

It  is  related  that  Claude  Le  Jeune,  the  fa- 
[  199] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

vorite  musician  of  King  Henry  III,  once 
caused  a  spirited  air  to  be  sung  at  a  wed- 
ding, "  which  so  animated  a  gentleman  who 
was  present  that  he  clapped  his  hand  on  his 
sword  and  swore  that  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  refrain  from  fighting  with  the  first 
person  he  met;  upon  which  Claude  caused 
another  air  to  be  performed,  of  a  soothing 
kind,  which  immediately  restored  him  to  his 
natural  temperament." 

It  has  long  been  known  that  music  pos- 
sesses simple  powers  like  these ;  that  it  can 
not  only  "  soothe  the  savage  breast,"  but 
even  make  it  savage  in  the  first  place ;  that 
it  can  dry  up  the  iron  tears  on  Pluto's  cheek 
as  well  as  draw  them  down  its  flinty  surface. 
Readers  of  Dryden  will  recollect  how  easily 
old  Timotheus  with  lyre  and  flute  put  Alex- 
ander the  Great  through  his  emotional  paces ; 
and  every  music  lover  can  doubtless  recall 
no  end  of  times  when  music  has  consoled 
or  soothed  or  stimulated  him  in  the  hour  of 
need. 

[200] 


THE  MUSICAL  PHARMACY 

"Music  will  some  day,"  writes  Crowest, 
"  become  a  powerful  and  accepted  therapeu- 
tic. The  ancients  tried  it  and  found  it  an- 
swer. Saul  benefited  by  it ;  Clinias  the  Py- 
thagorean resorted  to  his  harp  at  periods  of 
uncontrollable  emotion  ;  the  mind  of  Madame 
de  la  Marche,  wrung  to  pieces  through  her 
husband's  inconstancy,  was  restored  by  the 
soothing  balm  of  harp-strings;  have  many 
not  read  of  George  Eliot's  Caterina  taking 
refuge  in  harpsichord  music  from  her  own 
passion?  We  knew  a  great  executant  who 
was  summoned,  as  a  last  resource,  to  play  at 
the  bedside  of  a  man  on  the  brink  of  eter- 
nity. Oh,  yes  !  Music  is  a  blessed,  God-given 
restorative  in  mental  trial." 

Since  music,  then,  has  such  powers,  I  won- 
der why  we  do  not  deliberately  try  to  harness 
them  to  the  service  of  man  as  we  have  begun 
to  harness  water-power  and  suggestion  and 
radio-activity.  The  art  can  do  almost  any- 
thing it  likes  with  the  human  mind  ;  yet  we 
seldom  think  of  actually  selecting  and  hear- 
[201] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

ing  the  kind  of  piece  that  squares  with  our 
inner  need;  and  we  persistently  keep  on  in  our 
reckless  fashion  exposing  ourselves  to  the 
effects  of  all  kinds  of  music  without  the  least 
regard  to  the  nature  of  the  forces  we  are  turn- 
ing loose.  Musically,  at  least,  we  are  almost 
as  primitive  as  those  ancient  ancestors  of  ours 
who  went  about  indiscriminately  sampling  all 
the  herbs  of  the  field  to  see  how  each  would 
affect  them.  Sometimes  they  happened  to 
strike  the  very  thing  for  the  complaint. 
More  often  they  slew  themselves  in  the 
quest,  —  unless,  indeed,  they  possessed  an  in- 
stinct for  herbs  superior  to  our  present  one 
for  music.  Or,  to  bring  the  figure  nearer 
home,  we  attend  lengthy  concerts,  often  with- 
out knowing  beforehand  what  we  are  going 
to  hear,  and  stay  to  the  bitter  end,  taking 
everything  just  as  it  comes.  And  often  this 
has  somewhat  the  same  effect  on  our  spirits 
as  it  would  have  on  our  bodies  to  rush  into 
the  nearest  pharmacy  and  drain  the  first 
dozen  bottles  we  came  to  on  the  shelves. 
[  202  ] 


THE   MUSICAL  PHARMACY 

Why,  in  this  land  of  religions,  does  not 
some  new  sect  found  its  faith  on  the  healing 
power  of  music  ?  The  reason  perhaps  is  that 
music  —  unlike  the  pharmacopoeia  —  is  well 
understood  to  be  all  things  to  all  men  and 
very  different  things  to  different  men.  It  is 
as  true  in  the  concert  hall  as  at  dinner  that 
what  is  one  man's  meat  may  be  another  man's 
poison.  Yet  we  all  acknowledge  this  "other 
man  "  to  be  rather  an  exceptional  creature  ; 
and  it  is  our  belief  that,  broadly  speaking,  a 
certain  food  may  be  counted  on  to  have  a 
uniform  effect  upon  everybody  at  the  table. 
This  is  why  we  continue  serenely  building  up 
the  broad  principles  of  dietetics  while  ex- 
pecting each  individual  to  start  therefrom 
and  work  out  the  details  of  his  own  table 
regimen  according  to  his  particular  needs ;  — 
and  why  we  neglect  the  science  of  medicinal 
music. 

Now  though  a  piece  of  music  differs  from 
a  piece  of  roast  beef  in  that  it  has  the  power 
to  convey  a  different  set  of  mental  images  to 
[203] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

each  one  of  its  consumers,  yet,  despite  this 
diversity  of  suggestion,  it  can  be  counted  on 
to  have  very  much  the  same  uniform  effect 
on  their  emotional  constitutions  as  the  beef 
has  on  their  physical. 

A  cradle-song,  for  example,  if  well  played 
on  the  violin,  might  bring  to  the  mind  of 
one  hearer  the  lapping  of  moonlit  ripples  in 
some  quiet  cove,  to  another  the  noon-hour  of 
luxurious  indolence  at  the  cracker-factory,  to 
a  third  the  slow  waving  of  fronds  on  some 
crystalline  sea-floor,  to  yet  another  the  mo- 
ment when  the  aeroplane  motor  is  cut  off 
and  the  great  bird  starts  on  its  long,  smooth, 
silent  glide  to  earth.  Perhaps  to  only  one  in 
the  whole  audience  will  that  melody  conjure 
up  the  vignette  of  a  baby  being  rocked  to 
sleep  on  its  mother's  breast.  But  note  that 
to  every  one  alike,  with  all  their  varying  con- 
crete interpretations,  this  particular  music 
can  scarcely  fail  to  bring  a  feeling  of  tran- 
quillity. And  note,  as  well,  that  the  music 
does  not  convey  the  feeling  by  mere  sugges- 
[  204  ] 


THE   MUSICAL  PHARMACY 

tion  as  the  other  arts  would  be  driven  to  do  : 
it  is,  in  some  mysterious  way,  the  feeling 
itself. 

Of  course  everybody  needs  to  work  out 
for  himself  the  details  of  his  musical  phar- 
macy much  as  he  needs  to  work  out  those 
of  his  own  scheme  of  dietetics.  Yet  this  does 
not  mean  that  music  of  marked  character 
may  not  be  counted  on  to  affect  people  with 
sufficient  emotional  uniformity  to  make  a 
science  of  musical  pharmacy  possible. 

Now,  although  perfectly  recognizing  the 
fact  that  the  varied  contents  of  any  one  per- 
son's musical  medicine-chest  may  not  be 
efficacious  in  their  entirety  for  any  other 
person,  yet  I  am  going  to  name  a  few  of  the 
remedies  in  my  own  small  pharmacy  in  the 
hope  of  suggesting  to  another  amateur  some 
specific  that  may  square  with  his  needs  and 
encourage  him  to  form  a  pharmacy  of  his 
own.  It  is  but  fair  to  say  that  no  small  pains 
have  been  taken  in  guarding  against  individ- 
ual eccentricities  and  the  chance  of  a  merely 
[  205  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

accidental  association  of  certain  music  with 
certain  emotions.  No  remedy  is  mentioned 
here  unless  its  efficacy  has  been  vouched 
for  by  a  jury  of  friends,  all  better  musicians 
than  the  writer.  This  list,  therefore,  has  been 
brought  nearer  to  universal  validity  than  any 
purely  first-personal  pharmacopoeia  possibly 
could  be. 

An  excellent  sarsaparilla  for  that  condi- 
tion which  the  younger  generation  elegantly 
terms  "  dopiness,"  and  their  elders  describe 
as  "feeling  like  a  stewed  owl,"  is  a  rousing 
performance  of  The  Ride  of  the  Valkyries 
(the  pianola  will  even  do  at  a  pinch),  or  of 
Schubert's  Erl-King,  or  of  that  Carnival 
Overture,  by  Dvorak,  which  is  almost  like  a 
plunge  into  an  electric  fountain  of  youth. 

"  To  one  who  has  been  long  in  city  pent 
'T  is  very  sweet  to  look  into  the  fair 
And  open  face  of  heaven  "  — 

that  spreads  above  him  when  he  climbs  with 

Debussy  upon  the  shoulder  of  that  pleasant, 

grassy  knoll  which  he  calls  his  "  Mountain," 

[  206  ] 


THE   MUSICAL  PHARMACY 

or  even  to  feel  for  a  moment  the  pure,  warm, 
bright  meadows  that  surround  the  "  Sun- 
shine "  song  of  Schumann  :  to  follow  the 
windings  of  the  sparkling  river  in  Smetana's 
tone-poem  The  Moldau,  or  to  lie  on  your 
back  under  the  thick  leaves  while  Wagner's 
wand  transforms  such  wood-magic  as  that 
of  Westermain  into  pure  tone  in  the  Wold- 
weben. 

Music  is  the  comfort  of  the  comfortless, 
the  mighty  consoler  of  them  that  mourn. 
What  reader  of  De  Morgan  can  forget  how 
potently  those  few  measures  from  the  first 
movement  of  Beethoven's  Waldstein  Sonata 
comforted  Joseph  Vance  when  he  had  lost  his 
beloved  foster-father  ?  Less  calm  and  power- 
ful and  god-like  than  this,  but  more  intimate 
and  tender  is  Chopin's  E  major  etude.  One 
of  my  friends  was  once  in  a  dangerous  state 
of  mind.  Everything  was  black  around  him. 
There  was  no  ray  of  comfort,  no  gleam  of 
hope,  nothing  left  to  live  for.  He  was  fast 
slipping  into  melancholia.  His  thoughts 
[  207  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

turned  often  to  the  question  :  to  be  or  not 
to  be  ?  One  morning  as  he  was  dressing  and 
pondering  darkly  on  the  relative  attractions 
of  life  and  death  his  small  daughter  began 
with  halting  fingers  to  play  this  etude  in  the 
room  beneath.  And  all  at  once  my  friend 
was  conscious  of  a  wave  of  consolation  flow- 
ing through  him.  It  came  with  all  the  act- 
uality of  a  physical  wave.  "  Ah,  what 's  the 
use?"  he  cried.  "  This  is  really  too  beautiful! " 
And  from  that  moment  on,  life  held  him. 

Music  is  especially  rich  in  those  large,  in- 
effable, irresistible  consolations  compared  to 
which  the  verbal  attempts  of  well-meaning 
friends  sink  into  mere  babble.  For  all  its 
clinging  sadness,  the  Adagio  from  Beetho- 
ven's Sonata  Pathetic  is  one  of  these.  The 
slow  movement  of  Brahms's  second  'cello 
sonata  has  healing  in  its  wings ;  and  that  of 
Dvorak's  concerto  for  the  same  instrument 
can  even 

"  minister  to  a  mind  diseased ; 
Pluck  from  the  memory  a  rooted  sorrow; 
[  208  ] 


THE   MUSICAL  PHARMACY 

Raze  out  the  written  troubles  of  the  brain; 
And,  with  some  sweet  oblivious  antidote, 
Cleanse  the  stuffed  bosom  of  that  perilous  stuff, 
Which  weighs  upon  the  heart." 

If  Shakespeare  had  been  a  musical  amateur 
of  the  twentieth  century  he  would  never 
have  talked  about  these  things  in  the  hope- 
less way  he  did.  He  would  have  known  that 
hard-headed  alienists  even  recommend  music 
as  a  hopeful  treatment  for  insanity.  We 
moderns  sometimes  forget  how  late  in  history 
musical  art  attained  its  teens. 

It  is  not  likely,  however,  that  we  of  to-day 
have  quite  such  a  potent  cure  for  timidity 
as  the  ancient  Spartans  had.  It  is  written  of 
Tyrtaeus  that,  having  caused  his  poetry  "  to 
be  sung  with  flutes,  well  tuned  together,  he 
so  stirred  and  inflamed  the  courage  of  the 
soldiers  thereby,  that  whereas  they  had  be- 
fore been  overcome  in  divers  conflicts,  being 
then  transported  with  the  fury  of  the  Muses, 
they  became  conquerors,  and  cut  in  pieces 
the  whole  army  of  the  Messenians."  Still, 
[  209  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

when  we  remember  that  the  Greek  flutes 
were  rather  like  modern  fifes,  and  recollect 
what  feats  of  valor  certain  shrill  renditions 
of  Yankee  Doodle  have  inspired  in  our  own 
history ;  when  we  recall  that  even  Die  Wacht 
am  ffliein  and  the  Marsellaise  have  power  to 
heat  our  blood,  and  the  Sword  Motive  and 
The  Two  Grenadiers,  to  stir  our  souls  to  a 
noble  rage,  we  perceive  that  the  power  of 
martial  music  is  after  all  very  much  the  same 
yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever. 

Respecting  the  best  remedy  for  hardening 
of  the  heart,  it  is  difficult  to  decide  between 
the  poignant,  heart-rending  Adagio  Lamen- 
toso  that  ends  Tschaikowsky's  Pathetic  Sym- 
phony, and  some  of  the  tender  little  piano 
pieces  that  Schumann  wrote  for  and  about 
children,  with  all  the  loving  humor,  the  deli- 
cate insight  that  Stevenson  showed  long 
afterwards  in  laying  out  his  Child's  Garden 
of  Verses. 

As  for  a  mere  case  of  selfishness,  that  is 
easily  disposed  of  by  one  or  two  applications 
[210  J 


THE  MUSICAL  PHARMACY 

of  the  Funeral  March  from  Beethoven's 
Eroica  Symphony. 

When  one  happens  to  feel  intellectually 
flabby  or  mawkishly  sentimental  or  sicklied 
o'er  with  a  pale  cast  of  thoughtlessness,  the 
best  thing  he  can  do,  in  my  opinion,  is  to 
follow  with  all  his  might  the  closely  wrought, 
brilliant,  exhilarating  reasoning  of  a  Bach 
fugue  or  "  invention,"  which  will  prove  as 
good  a  brain  bracer  as  an  hour's  hard 
labor  over  Aristotle  or  Spencer's  First  Prin- 
ciples. 

If  one  is  feeling  conceited  it  is  an  excel- 
lent thing  to  take  up  the  music  of  some  half- 
forgotten  second-  or  third-rater  like  Hummel 
or  Dussek,  like  Philipp  Emanuel  Bach  or 
Cherubini,  and  consider  how  much  of  skill, 
energy,  and  patience,  of  subtlety  and  learn- 
ing and  self-repression,  and  how  many  flashes 
of  true  inspiration  have  been  made  as  nought 
by  the  achievements  of  the  first-raters.  After 
that  it  were  well  to  choose  some  stupendous 
work  like  one  of  Beethoven's  last  quartets, 
[211] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

and  steep  one's  self  in  it  until  all  the  petty 
vanity  has  been  steeped  away. 

In  the  wide  realm  of  the  arts  I  know  of 
two  supreme  specifics  for  one  of  those  ultra- 
ultramarine  Mondays  when  you  feel  like  the 
latter  end  of  a  mis-spent  life.  These  are : 
Stevenson's  Letters,  and  that  finale  from 
Brahms's  First  Symphony  which  so  closely 
favors  its  sire,  Beethoven's  Hymn  to  Joy. 

Anger  needs  a  big,  broad,  flowing  anti- 
dote, sympathetically  genial  but  not  gay  (for 
gayety  would  jar),  with  the  least  hint  of  the 
inhibitory  powers  of  religion.  It  must  have 
in  it  something  at  once  calming  and  stirring. 
Such  a  strain,  to  my  mind,  is  the  Pilgrim? 's 
Chorus  from  Tannh'duser. 

When  we  have  been  laying  waste  our 
powers  by  having  the  world  "  too  much  with 
us"  ;  when  our  nerves  are  frazzled  out  by  the 
strenuous,  ugly  confusion  of  modern,  metro- 
politan existence ;  "  when  life  becomes  a 
spasm,"  —  then  we  need  such  deep,  serene 
beauty  as  the  variations  from  the  Appassion~ 
[212] 


THE   MUSICAL  PHARMACY 

ata  Sonata  of  Beethoven,  or  one  of  those 
mellow  German  chorales  like  0  Haupt  voll 
Blut  und  Wunde,  that  say  with  their  first 
benign  harmonies  :  "  Come  unto  Me,  all  ye 
that  are  weary  and  heavy  laden,  and  I  will 
give  you  rest." 

Or,  if  one  is  outworn  with  intellectual 
toil,  that  blessed  Good  Friday  Spell  from 
Parsifal  might  be  always  there,  if  one  only 
knew  it,  to  perform  the  gentle  ministry  of 
its  healing  hands,  — 

"  Pressing  the  brain,  which  too  much  thought  expands, 
Back  to  its  proper  size  again,  and  smoothing 
Distortion  down  till  every  nerve  had  soothing, 
And  all  lay  quiet,  happy,  and  suppress'd." 

In  the  musical  pharmacy  there  should  al- 
ways be  a  particular  shelf  of  cures  for  com- 
monplaceness  and  sordid  materialism,  and  of 
antidotes  against  those  times  when  the  thing 
that  should  be  "  one  grand,  sweet  song " 
turns  into  as  repellently  arid  prose  as  ever 
smudged  the  dread  pages  of  Harvey's  Gram- 
mar. The  quintessence  of  musical  romance 
[213] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

should  be  kept  there.  On  that  shelf  the 
horns  of  elfland  that  blow  ever  so  faintly  in 
Weber's  Oberon  Overture  should  forever  be 
found  in  excellent  playing  condition;  and  a 
soft  corner  is  to  be  reserved  for  Schumann's 
tiny  Furchtenmachen,  which  should  be 
watched  over  by  that  Fair  Melusine  whom 
Mendelssohn  made  like  unto  some  fairy  prin- 
cess out  of  Grimm. 

I  should  like  to  see  the  really  musical  mis- 
anthrope who  could  keep  on  hating  his  fel- 
lows under  repeated  applications  of  Schu- 
bert's Unfinished,  or  of  the  Romance  from 
Schumann's  D  Minor  Symphony. 

As  for  feeling  "chilly  and  grown  old"  and 
all  dried  up  within,  it  is  not  to  be  thought 
of  a  moment  longer  with  the  Minuet  from 
Beethoven's  first  piano  sonata  sounding  in 
one's  ears  and  charming  away  the  furrows 
with  its  winsome  humors,  its  exquisite  kitten- 
like playfulness. 

Jealousy  requires  much  the  same  sort  of 
medicine  as  anger,  only  it  must  not  be  so 
[214] 


THE   MUSICAL  PHARMACY 

solemn,  and  more  careless  and  swinging  and 
magnanimous;  with  more  of  sunlight  and 
laughter  in  it.  I  know  nothing  hetter  than 
"  the  length  and  the  breadth  and  the  sweep  " 
of  the  prelude  to  Die  Meister singer. 

For  boredom  is  indicated  a  bottle  or  two 
of  such  champagne  as  Liszt's  Les  Preludes, 
or  the  opening  spree  of  either  of  the  Schu- 
mann Carnivals. 

For  mere  facial  longitude  the  end  of  Bee- 
thoven's Eighth  Symphony  would  not  be 
amiss.  And  as  for  worry,  it  seems  a  con- 
temptible thing  when  the  Brahms  Wiegenlied 
or  the  Dream  Music  from  Hansel  und  Gretel 
floats  out  upon  the  charmed  air  and  draws 
the  tired  eyelids  contentedly  down  over  the 
tired  eyes. 

The  best  thing  for  the  relaxing  and  sooth- 
ing of  mouth-muscles  which  have  been  made 
to  ache  through  keeping  up  a  chronic,  insin- 
cere smile  at  a  reception,  is  Cesar  Franck's 
gigantic  piano  Prelude  in  E  Major. 

And  as  for  all  manner  of  pettiness  and 
[215] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

faultfinding ;  as  for  the  miserable  odds  and 
ends  of  human  frailty  and  the  half-broken- 
down  partitions  of  prejudice  that  sometimes 
clutter  up  the  soul  and  divide  it  into  a  series 
of  miserable  small  ante-chambers  to  nothing 
at  all,  —  the  Procession  of  the  Gods  to 
Walhalla  from  Das  Rheingold  will  sweep 
these  all  away  in  a  tremendous  trice  and 
make  one  fairly  spacious  within. 

As  an  antidote  for  pure  misery,  what  could 
be  better  than  a  generous  dose  of  unadulter- 
ated musical  happiness  ?  If  there  is  any 
much  purer  than  the  great  Schubert  quintet 
for  strings,  I  should  like  to  be  informed 
of  it. 

There  are  not  a  few  universities  that  give 
men  long  rolls  of  parchment  and  the  degree 
of  D.  Mus.  when  they  really  ought  to  dub 
them  Musical  Pharmacists.  So  far  as  I  am 
aware  the  true  Doctors  of  Music  are  yet  to 
come.  Those  falsely  so  called  are  the  men 
who  are  skilled  in  putting  up  existing  formu- 
[216] 


THE  MUSICAL  PHARMACY 

las  at  so  much  per  formula,  and  occasionally 
patenting  one  themselves. 

The  real  doctor  of  music,  when  he  appears, 
will  be  quite  different.  In  the  first  place  he 
will  be  such  an  accomplished  automusician 
that  he  can  always  give  himself  silent  treat- 
ment with  the  proper  unheard  melody  the 
instant  any  complaint  shows  its  head.  Thus 
he  will  enjoy  chronic  good  health  and  be  his 
own  best  advertisement.  Then  he  will  be  an 
exceedingly  human  sort  of  psychologist  who 
can  diagnose  your  mind  or  heart  or  soul  dis- 
eased, or  your  slightest  temperamental  fail- 
ings, and  find  out  at  once  what  is  the  trouble 
with  the  atmosphere  in  your  home.  For  this 
trouble  he  will  prescribe  ;  and  perhaps  even 
open  his  instrument  case  and  snatch  out  a 
fiddle  and  fill  his  prescription  on  the  spot. 
Or  he  may  walk  into  the  house  and  take  one 
look  at  your  fluttering  hands  and  sunken 
eyes ;  then  make  for  the  piano-stool,  draw  a 
deep  breath  and  begin  rolling  out  of  his  broad 
chest  the  calm  verities  of  "  Du  hist  die  Rich." 
[217  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

On  second  thought  let  us  call  this  servant 
in  the  house  something  besides  Doctor  of 
Music.  The  title  has  such  disagreeable  asso- 
ciations with  dissecting  rooms  in  conserva- 
tories, and  laborious  savants  holding  long- 
faced  inquests  over  cadavers  of  counterpoint. 
It  would  be  so  much  jollier  to  see  in  the  win- 
dow of  every  music  store  a  small  brass  plate 
bearing  some  such  legend  as  this : 


JOHN  BROWN 

SOUL 
TUNER 


XII 

THE  WEARING  QUALITIES  OF  MUSIC 

If  the  string-quartet  party  you  were  enjoy- 
ing on  your  private  yacht  had  the  ill  fortune 
to  be  cast  away  on  Crusoe's  island,  and  you 
could  stow  only  one  piece  of  music  in  your 
bosom,  before  the  good  craft  broke  up  and 
you  were  washed  ashore  on  the  'cello-box 
with  your  three  comrades,  —  what  would  that 
one  piece  of  music  be  ? 

I  think  I  know.  Not  the  cloying  periods 
of  Raff  nor  the  short,  monotonously  gusty 
phrases  of  Grieg,  nor  any  of  the  excitable 
Slavik  music.  It  would  not  be  the  naive 
geniality  of  Haydn  nor  the  serene,  obvious 
beauty  of  Mozart  or  Schubert  or  the  young 
Beethoven.  Not  at  all.  Beneath  your  bath- 
ing garments  you  would  stow  one  of  those 
gray,  inscrutable  works  of  Brahms  into  which 
you  have  as  yet  penetrated  only  a  very  short 
[219] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

distance,  and  that  with  difficulty,  because  it 
is  like  a  granite  quarry  veined  with  gold.  Or 
you  might  conceivably  snatch  up  one  of  those 
gnarled  last  quartets  by  Beethoven,  —  a 
thing  that  was  at  first  sight  about  as  beauti- 
ful to  you  as  the  scarred,  ancient  trunk  of 
the  tree  of  knowledge  itself.  Under  these 
circumstances,  though,  you  would  not  care 
much  for  mere  externals.  You  would  think 
only  of  wearing  qualities. 

What,  then,  are  the  qualities  that  make 
one  piece  of  music  wear  for  centuries  and 
another  wear  out  in  days?  Their  name  is 
legion.  We  could  never  discuss  them  all  in 
these  few  pages.  But  let  us  look  for  some  of 
the  chief  ones. 

Before  we  begin,  however,  one  point  must 
be  made  clear.  To  say  that  a  certain  piece  of 
music  wears  better  than  another  piece  is  not 
equivalent  to  saying  that  it  is  better.  That 
would  be  like  declaring  the  immortelle  a  bet- 
ter flower  than  the  anemone.  The  word 
"  wears "  is  to  be  taken  in  a  quantitative 
[  220  ] 


THE   WEARING   QUALITIES  OF  MUSIC 

rather  than  in  a  qualitative  sense.  It  means 
that,  in  the  long  run,  one  piece  of  music 
gives  more  pleasure  and  profit  than  another, 
—  that,  in  fact,  it  has  a  "  long  run." 

Perhaps  the  most  practical  method  of  in- 
quiry will  be  to  hold  a  post-mortem  inquest 
on  some  popular  tune  of  yester-year,  in  the 
hope  of  discovering  what  it  died  of ;  and  to 
compare  with  it  some  lusty  little  classic  tune 
that  bids  fair  to  be  a  musical  Methuselah. 
Suppose  we  rub  away  the  cobwebs  and  try 
our  scalpels  on  the  piece  called  Hiawatha 
which  had  such  a  short,  violent  life  and  even 
more  violent  death  eight  or  nine  years  ago. 

We  notice  first  of  all  that  this  repulsive 
dead  thing  is  of  almost  the  same  length  as 
the  famous  Air  from  Bach's  D  Major  Suite 
for  orchestra.  Why  should  the  one  group  of 
notes  have  lasted  only  a  year  and  the  other 
be  still  young  at  two  hundred  ? 

Because,  in  the  first  place,  nobody  was 
ever  obliged  to  work  in  order  to  grasp  the 
content  of  Hiawatha.  It  was  as  easy  as  a 
[221] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

soap  advertisement.  Its  charms  were  as  ob- 
vious, its  prettinesses  as  frankly  held  up  to 
all  men's  view  as  those  of  the  ballet  in  that 
fetching  tone-drama,  The  Follies  of  1911, 
now  drawing  packed  houses  on  Broadway. 
Per  contra,  it  had  no  veiled,  inscrutable 
Mona  Lisa  smile.  It  aroused  none  of  the  hope 
that  springs  eternal  in  the  human  breast.  In 
five  minutes  you  knew  it  for  what  it  was; 
nor,  though  you  had  continued  digging  in 
that  mine  till  you  were  as  old  as  the  Air  it- 
self, would  you  ever  have  discovered  one  hid- 
den gleam  of  precious  metal,  for  the  reason 
that  all  the  gilding  was  on  the  surface.  The 
mine  was  "  salted." 

The  immense  popularity  of  Hiawatha  was 
due  in  part  to  humanity's  eagerness  to  get 
something  for  nothing.  But  people  never  long 
appreciate  that  for  which  they  have  never 
made  sacrifices  :  a  truth  which  charity  organ- 
izations and  settlements  are  beginning  to 
learn.  The  thing  was  too  easy.  Hence  peo- 
ple dropped  it  as  unceremoniously  as  they 
[  222  ] 


THE   WEARING  QUALITIES  OF  MUSIC 

are  accustomed  to  drop  the  gushing  stranger 
who  pours  out  the  story  of  his  heart  for 
your  benefit  between  stations.  It  was  too 
obvious.  It  had  none  of  that  mysterious  re- 
serve which,  as  woman  so  happily  shows  us, 
is  one  of  the  supremest  of  all  wearing  quali- 
ties. Its  grasp  so  far  exceeded  its  reach  that 
you  were  convinced  it  had  nothing  up  its 
sleeve.  In  this  respect  it  stood  to  the  Bach 
Air  as  the  poems  of  Tupper  stood  to  the 
poems  of  Robert  Browning. 

Again,  Hiawatha  did  not  wear  well  be- 
cause it  was  made  of  poor  materials,  — 
pieced  together  pretty  much  anyhow  out  of 
tiny  scraps  from  the^rag-bag  of  the  past. 
The  melodies  were  no  larger  than  microbes. 
The  harmony  was  what  the  theory-professors 
would  call  "  three-legged."  That  is  to  say,  it 
could  not  hobble  far  beyond  the  limitations 
of  the  mouth-organ.  Its  stock  of  harmonic 
expressions  was  no  more  opulent  than  the 
compendious  vocabulary  of  a  four-year-old. 
Its  monotony  hypnotized  the  public  like 
[  223  J 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

staring  at  a  flickering  candle-flame.  The 
little  phrases  repeated  themselves  in  nervous 
flutters,  as  though  Hiawatha  had  contracted 
Saint  Vitus's  dance  or  had  spent  a  week 
in  Wall  Street.  And  so  the  cheap,  stunted, 
tawdry  little  tune  rolled  a  short  while  from 
soul  to  kindred  soul,  making  itself  very  much 
at  home  in  the  breast  of  business  America, 
spreading  itself  out  large  there  and  leaving 
barely  standing  room  for  such  things  as 
Bach's  old  Air.  But  the  Air  did  not  mind. 
It  knew  that  real  melody  is  the  divinest  thing 
man  ever  created  and  that  itself  was  one  of 
the  longest,  most  perfect  melodies  in  exist- 
ence. Why  should  a  melody  that  falls  like 
Aphrodite's  glorious  hair  over  the  fitting  har- 
monies of  Aphrodite's  body  mind  if  the 
stock-broker's  heart  is  set  instead  on  the  rat 
that  crowns  the  slatternly  and  consumptive 
Bridget? 

The   Bach   Air   is   original ;    Hiawatha, 
reminiscent.  Theft  will  out,  even  though  it 
is  perfectly  unconscious.  The  public  seems  to 
[  224  ] 


THE   WEARING  QUALITIES  OF   MUSIC 

have  a  sharp  intuition  for  it,  though  not  at 
once,  —  another  reason  for  the  violent  lives 
and  more  violent  deaths  of  its  Hiawathas. 

People  often  pay  the  Air  the  highest  of  un- 
conscious tributes  in  exclaiming,  "  Now,  why 
did  n't  I  think  of  that  myself  ?  It  seems 
so  inevitable ! "  They  never  say  that  about 
the  Hiawathas.  They  exclaim  over  their 
cleverness  or  catchiness  and,  after  a  few 
months,  they  suddenly  sicken  of  them  and  re- 
alize that  the  parts  which  had  not  been  pla- 
giarized are  as  strained  as  the  plot  of  a  bad 
short-story  by  a  writer  who  knows  nothing 
about  life. 

The  Air  is  perfectly  simple,  yet  unostenta- 
tiously rich.  Hiawatha  is  like  a  gay  young 
Sicilian  dandy  without  a  copper  to  his  name, 
but  powdered,  rouged,  waxed,  and  tricked 
out  in  a  pound  of  plated  jewelry.  He  has 
just  been  spending  two  or  three  hours  in  bed 
while  his  old  mother  washed  and  pressed  his 
only  pair  of  white  flannel  trousers.  And  as 
for  less  conspicuous  apparel  —  ! 
[  225  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

Again,  Bach  packed  his  Air  with  true  sen- 
timent. That  is  to  say,  he  breathed  into  it  for 
all  time  such  a  wealth  of  love  and  reverence, 
of  faith  and  hope  and  joy  in  man  and  nature 
that  we  find  there  immortalized  a  generous 
portion  of  the  true  emotion  of  the  race.  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  sentiment  in  Hiawatha's 
system,  but  his  well-oiled  hair,  his  beringed 
hands,  and  those  whited  sepulchres,  his 
clothes,  reek  with  sentimentality. 

In  the  Air  the  nobility,  the  yearning,  the 
repressed  fire,  —  the  whole  tremendous  emo- 
tional element,  is  sustained  by  a  strong  and 
profoundly  wrought  intellectual  framework. 
This  untrammeled  revelation  of  the  heart  of 
man  was  conveyed  through  one  of  the  most 
exacting  mediums  known  to  the  science  of 
music,  the  passacaglia,  a  form  as  difficult  for 
the  composer  as  is  the  double  ballade  or  the 
Chant  Royal  for  the  poet.  The  structure  of 
Bach's  tour  de  force  will  repay  unlimited 
study.  Each  measure  is  finished  like  a  piece 
of  mosaic.  Every  part  is  as  functional,  yet  as 
[  226  ] 


THE  WEARING  QUALITIES  OF   MUSIC 

freely  worked  out  as  one  of  the  organic  parts 
of  a  Gothic  chapel.  And  one  stands  with 
bared  head  amid  that  rich  intricate  simpli- 
city, hardly  knowing  which  is  giving  him 
greater  pleasure,  the  tracery  and  noble  lines 
of  the  shafts  and  sustaining  arches,  or  the 
sweetness  and  light  pouring  in  through  the 
rose  window.  As  for  the  perpetrator  of  Hia- 
watha, he  erected  a  gaudy  summer  house  on 
the  sands.  And  though  he  put  little  enough 
intellect  into  its  construction,  he  put  so  much 
less  real  emotion  there  that  it  was  all  out  of 
equilibrium  from  the  first.  Then  the  rains 
descended  and  the  floods  came  and  the  winds 
blew  and  beat  upon  that  house,  and  it  fell,  — 
and  the  event  did  not  even  get  a  line  in  the 
newspapers.  For  it  was  a  mighty  poor  house 
anyway  and  it  was  founded  upon  the  sand  of 
ephemeral  vogue. 

Further,  the  Air,  for  all  its  dynamic  energy, 

has  about  it  a  large  repose,  —  the  repose  of 

the  Parthenon,  of  a  Rembrandt  portrait,  of 

the  Elgin  Marbles.  Just  as  no  sculptor  ex- 

[  227  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

pects  enduring  appreciation  for  a  statue  that 
is  modeled  in  a  strained,  unnatural  posture, 
so  no  composer  expects  immortality  for  mu- 
sic into  which  he  cannot  infuse  that  central 
calm  subsisting  forever  at  the  heart  even  "  of 
endless  agitation."  As  for  Hiawatha,  it  has 
about  as  much  repose  as  a  child's  paper 
whirligig  on  a  windy  day. 

One  last  consideration  —  for  we  must  end 
our  inquest  somewhere.  The  Bach  Air  is 
beautiful.  Hiawatha  is  merely  pretty.  And 
this  prettiness  is  of  the  ephemeral  kind  that 
may,  to-morrow  or  a  week  from  to-morrow, 
wilt  away  before  one's  eyes  into  downright 
ugliness.  But  the  Air  has  the  hardy  sort  of 
beauty  possessed  by  an  Egyptian  scarab.  All 
that  the  blowing  sands  of  Time  can  do  is 
merely  to  polish  it  up  to  a  higher  lustre. 

Now  all  art  criticism  is  more  or  less  a 
matter  of  individual  temperament.  Absolute 
canons  of  criticism  are  almost  as  hard  to 
come  at  as  "lines  of  beauty"  or  "the  aver- 
age man."  When  I  declare  a  Brahms  quartet 
[  228  ] 


THE   WEARING  QUALITIES  OF  MUSIC 

to  be  like  a  granite  quarry  veined  with  gold, 
I  mean  that  this  is  true  for  the  first  person, 
but  not  necessarily  for  the  second  or  third. 
To  you,  gentle  amateur,  Brahms  may  be  as 
naively,  dully  unalluring  as  Romberg  is  to 
me.  To  your  taste  the  rhapsodies  of  Liszt 
may  be  as  richly  simple  as  a  Bach  chorale  is 
to  mine. 

However  that  may  be,  the  foregoing  specu- 
lations about  the  wearing  qualities  of  music 
are  not  trying  to  fetter  the  free  play  of  any 
one's  personal  opinion.  They  are  simply  en- 
deavoring to  supply  the  writer  and  others  of 
kindred  tastes  with  laboratory  facilities  and 
testing  apparatus  and  a  rough  working  method 
for  the  practice  of  musical  fortune-telling. 

If  we  should  take  the  body  of  classical 
music  (that  is,  the  music  that  has  lived),  and 
compare  it  with  the  masses  of  dead  music  in 
our  attic  cemeteries,  and  should  then  bring 
to  bear  on  this  somewhat  the  same  sort  of 
reasoning  by  which  a  life  insurance  actuary 
constructs  those  curious  tables  that  can  tell 
[  229  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

anybody  his  "  expectation  of  life,"  —  we 
would,  in  my  opinion,  construct  tables  some- 
thing like  the  following,  which  would  help 
us  to  predict  how  many  centuries,  or  hours, 
any  given  composer  might  reasonably  be  ex- 
pected to  live. 


QUALITIES 

THAT  WEAR 

well: 

ill: 

Subtlety 

Obviousness 

Reserve 

Exaggeration  and  gush 

Variety 

Monotony 

Originality 

Reminiscence 

Inevitability 

The  strained 

Simple  opulence 

Flamboyant  poverty 

Sentiment 

Sentimentality 

Balance  between  intel- ) 

C  No  balance  between  in- 

lectual  and  emotional  r 

)        tellectual    and   emo- 

elements 

^        tional  elements 

Repose 

Restlessness 

Beauty 

Prettiness  and  ugliness 

The  most  I  have  hoped  to  do  here  is  to 
suggest  a  practical  sort  of  apparatus  and  a 
[230  ] 


THE   WEARING  QUALITIES  OF  MUSIC 

rough  working  method  that  may,  sometime, 
somewhere,  be  used  as  stepping  stones  to 
higher  things.  So  that  one  of  these  days  a 
musical  actuary  may  arise,  so  intimately  in 
touch  with  the  eternal  verities  that  he  can 
take  each  rising  composer  and  pronounce  in- 
fallibly upon  his  "  expectation  of  life."  And 
if  the  composers  only  have  reverence  enough 
for  the  authority  of  this  actuary  —  who 
knows?  —  perhaps  some  future  Hiawathist 
may  take  the  criticisms  so  to  heart  as  to  cor- 
rect his  own  failings,  and  disprove  the  crit- 
ical croakings  of  the  sage,  —  as  Mr.  Horace 
Fletcher  disproved  the  croakings  of  the  in- 
surance doctors,  —  and  thus  win  such  immor- 
tality as  fell  to  the  creator  of  the  Air  in  D. 


XIII 

MY  ROD  AND  MY  STAFF 

As  for  the  rod,  it  is  just  the  plain,  five  ounce 
affair  of  split  bamboo  that  goes  nearly  every- 
where with  me.  It  shall  be  spared,  —  and  you. 
My  traveler's  staff  is  what  I  would  celebrate. 
It  is  the  most  remarkable  staff  that  ever 
propped  pilgrim.  But  I  have  to  confess  at 
once  that  it  boasts  none  of  the  common  vir- 
tues of  staves.  It  is  not  stout,  not  trusty,  not 
particularly  good  to  behold.  It  rejoices  neither 
in  an  iron  toe  nor  in  a  fantastically  carved 
head.  In  the  mouth  of  a  fop  it  is  worm- 
wood and  gall.  It  has  never  been  of  the 
slightest  aid  amid  bristling  Dolomites  or  ar- 
duous Appalachians,  although  it  has  on  sev- 
eral occasions,  it  is  true,  helped  me  up  in- 
considerable stretches  of  "the  steep  ascent." 
And  though  it  is  the  very  thing  wherewith 
to  beckon  spirits  like  Ariel  to  do  one's  be- 
[  232  ] 


MY  ROD  AND  MY  STAFF 

hest,  it  is  practically  worthless  when  some 
too  radically  conservative  watch-dog  is  to  be 
held  at  bay. 

It  fact,  to  the  traveler's  gross,  material 
body  while  in  the  act  of  careering  through 
the  Baedekernian  system  from  star  to  star, 
mine  is  of  all  staves  most  worthless.  Gentle 
amateur,  I  perceive  you  in  the  act  of  asking 
what  earthly  good  my  traveler's  staff  is,  any- 
how. Well,  to  be  frank,  none  at  all  until  after 
you  return  from  your  travels.  You  know 
how  that  brilliant  epigram  which  you  really 
ought  to  have  improvised  at  dinner  never 
ref ulges  until  you  reach  home  ? 

So  with  my  staff.  But  then,  —  ah  then, 
it  is  metamorphosed  like  lightning  into  a 
magic  wand  with  all  the  power  of  a  genuine 
wishing-mat  to  transport  you  in  no  time  to 
the  very  heart  of  the  most  stirring,  sublime, 
melancholy  or  beautiful  scene  that  you  have 
ever  known. 

Some  coarse  carpers  have  accused  my  staff 
of  cutting  a  doubtful  figure,  of  looking,  in 
[  233  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

fact,  like  a  prison-pen.  But  any  really  gentle 
reader  will  at  once  comprehend  that  it  took 
this 


$ 


shape  simply  in  order  to  confine  each  elusive 
genius  loci  where  you  may  find  him  at  a 
moment's  notice. 

I  trust  that  all  this  makes  it  clear  that 
my  staff  is  sort  of  musical  diary  of  travel,  — 
a  device  by  the  grace  of  which,  when  you 
have  scratched  down  that  fragment  of  mel- 
ody you  happened  to  hear  the  band  play  one 
golden  afternoon  in  front  of  San  Marco,  you 
will  never  lose  the  miraculous  power  of  sum- 
moning up  at  will  the  whole  Venetian  vision. 
My  traveler's  staff  is  the  place  where  it  takes 
you  about  thirty  seconds  to  record  a  certain 
bit  of  Hungarian  dance  that  floated  up  from 
the  steerage  the  day  after  the  great  storm 
and  that  now  connotes  you  the  seven  seas 
and  especially  yourself  with  your  arm  about 

"  Old  ocean's  gray  and  melancholy  waste." 
[234] 


MY   ROD  AND   MY  STAFF 

How  is  it  that  five  notes  of  that  old  Bed- 
ouin chant  epitomize  for  you  the  unimagin- 
able reaches  of  the  Sahara?  Less  than  an 
octave  ;  less  than  half  a  measure,  —  yet  they 
compass  Africa  from  shore  to  shore. 

The  reason  for  this  phenomenon  is  that 
the  blessed  law  of  association  never  works 
with  more  charm  and  potency  than  in  col- 
laboration with  my  staff.  Music,  as  a  record 
of  travel,  is  incomparably  superior  to  words. 
It  is  so  much  more  sincere  and  spontaneous  ; 
so  much  more  concise  and  complete.  Words, 
at  best,  are  obstinate,  artificial,  unplastic,  im- 
pudent, hostile  things,  as  we  writers  know 
full  well.  And  in  making  a  diary  of  them 
you  have  to  knead  phrases  and  mould  sen- 
tences and  cast  paragraphs,  during  which 
processes  your  precious  cruse  of  spontaneity 
is  apt  to  spring  a-leak.  Then,  when  all  is 
written,  you  have  probably  expressed,  —  and 
very  ill  —  some  scene  widely  different  from 
the  scene  you  sought  to  express,  bathed  in  a 
light  that  never  was  on  land  or  sea. 
[  235  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

A  musical  diary,  on  the  other  hand,  does 
not  have  to  be  composed.  Its  stuff  lies  ready. 
A  few  scratches,  and  there  the  record  stands, 
forever  fresh,  forever  poignant  and  thrilling. 
For  music  is  a  sublimated  sponge  that  eagerly 
drinks  up  all  the  fluid  manifestations  of  na- 
ture and  art  about  it. 

I  am  perfectly  aware  of  the  current  belief 
that  the  nose  is  the  special  organ  of  memory, 
and  that  the  champions  of  this  theory  sup- 
pose that  there  is  such  a  compound  word  as 
"  remini-scent."  And  I  know  of  one  victim 
of  Wanderlust  whose  diary  consists  of  such 
wander-notes  as  a  faded  rose-petal  from  the 
south  of  France,  a  wafer  of  Edam  cheese,  a 
fragrant,  wine-soaked  menu  from  Orvieto. 
There  a  hop-blossom  stands  for  Nuremberg, 
and  a  dash  of  crude  oil  for  Cleveland,  Ohio. 

Indeed,  the  unique  excellence  of  such 
scent-records  of  past  pleasures  were  melliflu- 
ously  urged  not  long  ago  by  an  Atlantic  con- 
tributor whose  style  made  one  marvel  that 
a  nature  so  musical  should  not  already  have 
[  23G  ] 


MY  ROD  AND   MY   STAFF 

divined  the  superior  advantages  of  my  trav- 
eler's staff.  But  de  odoribus!  —  At  any 
rate  there  are  hosts  of  travelers  who  are 
built  psychologically  on  auditory  rather  than 
scent-uous  lines.  And  for  them,  at  least,  by 
as  much  as  their  ears  surpass  their  noses 
in  sensibility,  by  so  much  will  my  form  of 
travel-record  surpass  the  nasal  in  complete- 
ness and  potency.  Those  of  them,  moreover, 
who  keep  a  musical  pharmacy  will  at  once 
see  the  advisability  of  adding  my  staff  as  a 
specific  against  Wanderlust. 

This  surely  will  not  be  disputed,  that  mine 
is  the  most  concentrated  of  all  material  note- 
books. Compared  with  it  the  stenographer's 
is  encyclopaedic.  It  has  scarcely  anything  to 
do  with  matter  at  all.  It  is  well-nigh  pure 
spirit.  Who  wields  my  traveler's  staff  may 
sum  up  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome  on  his 
thumb-nail ;  all  Europe  on  the  back  of  a 
visiting-card. 

An  old  friend  of  mine  who  drives  a  stage 
out  West  is  the  kind  of  musician  who  takes 
[237] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

no  stock  in  written  music.  "  Them  there 
notes  "  are  to  him  "  jest  like  so  many  darnin' 
needles  stuck  up  in  knot-holes,  with  a  few 
strips  o'  rag  flutterin'  from  the  ends."  My 
friend  "  jest  goes  it  by  ear."  So  would  I  if  I 
had  his  Homeric  memory,  and  then  my  diary 
would  become  absolutely  pure  spirit.  But 
this  effete  memory  of  mine  needs  continual 
jogging.  A  very  small  handful  of  those  same 
darning  needles,  however,  can  construct  me 
a  more  vivid  tapestry  of  Athens,  say,  than 
whole  columns  of  the  very  choicest  words  in 
Roget. 

For  instance,  as  I  take  up  my  diary  a 
fragment  of  the  Greek  National  March  ap- 
pears. Without  warning  I  am  lolling  again 
in  the  real  Stadium,  enjoying  the  play  of 
color  and  emotion  over  that  beautiful  con- 
course of  sixty  thousand,  set  off  by  the 
creamy  marble  benches  cut  from  Mount  Pen- 
telicon.  And  now  as  the  shadows  of  the 
superb  young  runners  and  wrestlers  below 
begin  to  lengthen,  I  rise  again  to  saunter 
[  238  ] 


MY  ROD  AND   MY  STAFF 

past  the  mellow  columns  of  the  Olympeium, 
wondering  how  they  can  manage  to  keep  on 
ignoring  the  neighboring  tennis  courts  with 
such  unruffled  dignity ;  catching  as  I  stroll, 
from  a  quiet,  musical  voice  here  and  there, 
some  word  straight  out  of  Homer,  some  phrase 
that  might  have  almost  come  from  Pindar  or 
Sappho  or  Sophocles.  Then  the  joy  of  stum- 
bling upon  the  Theatre  of  Dionysos  and  of 
resting  on  the  very  spot  where  iEschylus  may 
have  suffered  agonies  during  the  premiere 
of  the  Prometheus,  while  the  crumbling  stage 
is  quick  once  more  with  Thebes  and  Pelops' 
line.  Crowning  all  to  wander  through  the 
sacred  precinct  of  iEsculapius,  and  past  the 
hill  dedicated  to  memories  of  the  mighty 
tent-maker,  toward  where  the  setting  sun  is 
repainting  the  Parthenon  with  a  more  than 
Attic  art. 

My   musical  diary  happens  to  have  been 
kept  on  the  margin  of  a  note-book  written 
in  laborious  words.  As  I  turn  the  pages  care- 
lessly a  theme  looks  out  labeled  "  London," 
[  239  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

a  bit  of  a  Beethoven  sonata,  to  prove  once 
more  that  my  staff,  abandoning  the  grand 
manner,  is  quite  as  able  to  draw  with  loving 
fidelity  one  of  those  human  little  illustrations 
that  are  the  despair  of  writers  and  often 
mean  so  much  more  to  us  than  the  panoramas 
of  Claude  Lorraine.  Cecelia  and  I  had  been 
playing  that  sonata  together  the  evening  be- 
fore we  ran  up  to  town  for  a  lark  from  the 
meadows  of  Windsor.  Through  the  Wallace 
and  the  Abbey  and  the  Inner  Temple  the 
theme  followed  us.  Even  an  overdue  luncheon 
hour  could  not  discourage  it  (though  when 
hungry  we  are  usually  pestered  by  the  very 
tawdriest  of  tunes),  and  Cecelia,  Beethoven, 
and  I  turned  up  Fleet  Street  together  at  two, 
quite  ignorant  of  good  restaurants,  and  al- 
most ravenous  enough  to  resort  to  the  Aerated 
Bread  Company,  though  we  felt  that  nothing 
short  of  the  Mermaid  Tavern  could  fitly 
finish  that  morning. 

All  at  once  Cecelia  spied  a  print  of  Rey- 
nolds' Johnson  in  a  window  full  of  cobwebs. 
[  240  ] 


MY  ROD  AND   MY  STAFF 

A  wall-sign  promised  food.  I  darted  up  Wine 
Office  Court  to  reconnoitre.  One  look  was 
enough.  Another  moment  and  we  were  seated 
on  an  ancient  settle  over  a  sanded  floor  in 
a  cosier,  quainter  room  than  stay-at-home 
Americans  could  imagine.  Not  till  we  had 
ordered  did  we  notice  a  familiar  Reynolds 
canvas.  Presently  a  small  brass  plate  came  to 
light  over  a  corner  bench  which,  as  it  stated, 
was  the  favorite  seat  of  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson. 

"  Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skies 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken,"  — 

while  Cecelia,  "  in  a  wild  surmise,"  concluded 
that  our  usual  luck  must  have  led  us  straight 
to  "  Ye  Olde  Cheshire  Cheese."  At  the  same 
instant  Beethoven  hurdled  the  scherzo  and 
slow  movement  and  broke  with  a  whoop  of 
exultation  into  his  own  jubilant  finale  ;  while 
the  waiter  bawled  upstairs, "  Cook,  send  down 
two  beefsteak-and-kidney  pies  !  " 

As  is  natural  the  musical  themes  cluster 
thickest  in  the  records  of  years  in  the  father- 
[  241  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR  , 

land  of  music.  How  this  bar  of  Chopin  polo- 
naise brings  to  life  again  Danzig's  glamor- 
ous riverside,  the  old  port  of  Poland,  with  its 
tower-gates  and  its  cowardly  "  Long  Bridge" 
that  never  leaves  the  land.  And  for  me  the 
Rondo  in  Mozart's  G  major  Trio  is  simply 
the  stately  Herrenstrasse  of  Rothenburg, 
translated,  every  dear  stone  of  it,  into  tone. 
Curiously  enough,  no  German  music,  but, 
instead,  a  theme  of  Saint-Saens  has  the  power 
to  evoke  the  "  holy  "  city  of  Cologne  as  I  last 
beheld  it,  at  dusk,  from  the  bridge  of  boats. 
The  olive  water  slaps  and  gurgles  between  the 
battered,  blue  punts,  and  swings  the  green  rud- 
ders in  regular  rhythm.  The  romantic  rows 
of  sharp  old  gables  along  the  right  bank  take 
an  added  charm  in  the  softening  light,  backed 
as  they  are  by  the  Rathaus  belfry  and  looking 
confidently  up  to  old  Saint  Martin's  tower, 
massive,  four-square  above  them.  Symbolic- 
ally enough,  Saint  Martin's  seems  from  ere 
to  rise  higher  than  the  great  cathedral  itself 
which  is  shrouded  in  a  light  mist  and  stands 
[  242  ] 


MY  ROD  AND   MY  STAFF 

out  against  banks  of  lavender  cloud,  broken 
here  and  there  to  let  through  the  last  rosy 
gleams  of  day.  The  spires  are  at  their  love- 
liest. The  unrest  of  the  multitudinous  detail 
is  lost.  They  seem  no  longer  new  and  a  little 
hard.  They  have  become  the  symbol  of  that 
spirit  of  beauty  whose  dearest  child  is  Gothic. 
A  puff  or  two  of  white  and  slate-colored 
smoke  rises  from  the  railroad  station.  A  train 
of  golden  light  skims  across  the  Rhine.  A 
boat  full  of  happy  river  life  makes  fast.  I 
catch  the  buoyant  Rhenish  laughter  of  the 
folk  hastening  toward  me,  up  into  the  city 
of  their  love.  But  I  will  not  follow  them  just 
now.  I  will  stand  a  little  longer,  an  eddy  in 
the  bright-faced  throng,  and  bathe  myself  in 
beauty. 

There  are  a  few  rare  melodic  entries  in  the 
diary,  more  illuminating,  more  vividly  remin- 
iscent than  any  others.  A  melody  of  this  kind 
does  not  seem  to  owe  its  suggestive  power  to 
any  accident  of  nearness  in  space  or  time  to 
the  scene  it  suggests.  It  simply  comes  and 
[  243  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

takes  possession  of  the  spot  by  a  sort  of  nat- 
ural right  as  if  revisiting  its  birthplace.  I  am 
fond  of  thinking  that  these  uncalled  melodies 
came  into  being  under  conditions  like  those 
which  re-created  them  for  me,  somewhat  as 
The  Eve  of  Saint  Agnes  was  born  again  in 
Kipling's  Wireless. 

Never  again  shall  we  hear  the  Andante  of 
Beethoven's  Fifth  Symphony  without  remem- 
bering how  it  occurred  spontaneously  to  us 
one  Christmas  morning  in  Girgenti  as  we  were 
strolling  down  a  path  of  pure  sunlight,  dreamy 
with  the  first  almond  blossoms  and  purple 
iris.  Senile  prickly  pears  leered  like  gargoyles 
over  the  crumbling  walls.  The  portal  and  pil- 
lared orange  gardens  of  San  Nicola  lay  be- 
hind, —  the  glory  of  old  Greece  and  of  young 
Sicily,  before.  In  a  recent  roadside  cutting 
were  strewn  fragments  of  the  pottery  of  four 
civilizations.  The  whole  country-side,  fer- 
tilized with  the  decay  of  ancient  cultures, 
bloomed  like  an  English  garden  in  June.  In  a 
far  valley  a  goat-herd  struck  up,  on  such  a  reed 
[  244  ] 


MY  ROD  AND   MY  STAFF 

as  Theocritus  once  fingered,  a  melancholy 
sweet  tune  of  long  ago.  But  that  is  not  the 
melody  which  can  bring  us  back  at  will  to 
our  Sicilian  slope.  For,  just  as  the  harmony 
of  the  temple  of  Concord  burst  upon  us,  we 
became  conscious  of  that  Andante  pervading 
the  incomparable  scene  like  the  sunlight, 
breathed  through  all  like  the  ether,  under  all 
like  the  strength  of  the  hills.  Even  now  it  lets 
us  feel  again,  as  nothing  else  can,  the  thrill 
of  finding  that  little  terra-cotta  head  amid 
the  bleaching  bones  of  Hercules'  temple,  or 
the  delight  of  lunching  in  the  noble  portico 
of  Concord  while  the  sun  burnished  the  Medi- 
terranean far  below  on  the  left,  and  crowned 
on  the  right  the  city  that  clung  to  the  hill. 

On  the  highest  peak  of  Capri,  one  flaming 
sunset  time,  among  the  ruins  of  a  castle  of 
Tiberius  the  genius  of  the  place  was  awaiting 
me,  embodied  in  the  fiery,  sweeping  second 
theme  from  the  scherzo  of  the  Brahms  quin- 
tet. No  painter  could  possibly  get  on  canvas 
a  panorama  such  as  that  tone-picture  shows 
[245  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

me  now :  the  molten  sun  set  in  cloud-peaks  of 
glowing  lava,  threatening  the  fair  green  fields 
of  the  Mediterranean,  flushing  to  a  delicate 
rose  the  snow-mountains  above  Sorrento  and 
the  steaming  mantle  of  Vesuvius  and  the 
sweep  of  the  frosty  Apennines ;  —  clothing 
that  divine  coast  from  Paestum  to  Gaeta  in  all 
the  hues  of  the  rainbow.  Far  out  at  sea  the 
Ponzas  looked  like  the  very  Isles  of  the  Blest. 
I  gazed,  remembering  how  Brahms  loved 
Italy,  and  the  conviction  was  born  that  the 
master  could  have  conceived  that  theme  no- 
where else  than  on  the  pinnacle  of  Monte 
Solaro. 

Sometimes,  on  the  other  hand,  the  per- 
vasive power  of  music  becomes  a  curse  on 
one's  travels.  Hiawatha  dogged  me  through 
every  delicious  foot  of  Ravello  as  persistent 
and  annoying  as  the  slave  who,  attending  the 
Roman  emperor  on  his  triumph,  kept  hissing 
into  his  ear  depressing  reminders  of  his  mere 
mortality.  The  rich  atmosphere  of  Weimar 
was  tainted  by  a  noisome  Ganne  mazurka 
[  246  ] 


MY  ROD  AND  MY  STAFF 

which  I  contracted  there.  And  the  mere 
mention  of  Saint  Cloud  still  releases  within 
me  the  spring  of  a  music  box  that  will  grind 
out  by  the  morning  a  shoddy  piano  piece  by 
Sin  ding. 

Even  here,  however,  the  law  of  compensa- 
tion works  amiably.  For  in  after  years  it  is 
the  shoddy  music  that  is  ennobled  for  one 
by  its  noble  association,  not  the  place  that  is 
cheapened. 

But  suppose,  dear  amateurs  of  music,  that 
your  traveling  days  have  definitely  ended 
without  its  ever  occurring  to  you  to  keep  such 
a  concise  and  vivid  record  of  your  wander- 
ings as  a  musical  diary.  No  matter !  The  most 
uninspired  writers  in  the  world  have  collab- 
orated with  the  law  of  association  to  write 
you  an  inspired  commentary  on  the  whole 
route. 

You  doubt  me?  Just  step  to  the  music 
cupboard  and  take  down  that  dusty,  super- 
annuated instrument  of  torture,  an  old  book 
of  exercises.  (For  every  one  of  you  has  doubt- 
[247  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

less  "taken"  music  at  some  time  or  other, 
even  if  with  no  more  relish  than  so  much 
castor  oil.)  Behold,  you  are  about  to  be  re- 
paid. Look  well  at  the  ugly  lines  of  "knot- 
holes "  and  see  whether  every  single  one  does 
not  bring  back  some  memory  of  your  months 
of  apprenticeship.  "  All  thoughts,  all  passions, 
all  delights,"  whatever  stirred  your  mortal 
frame  in  the  old  years,  —  all  have  been  re- 
corded in  a  kind  of  sympathetic  ink  on  these 
dull  pages.  Just  warm  them  up  a  little  with 
your  hand  and  see  how  the  days  that  are  no 
more  will  start  out  of  the  paper. 

Suppose  that  you,  my  professional  friend, 
have  grown  very  dull  playing  the  'cello  in  a 
monotonous  theatre  orchestra,  and  long  for 
nothing  so  much  as  to  revisit  Berlin  and  the 
joyous  scenes  of  your  studious  youth,  —  a 
luxury  that  orchestral  incomes  by  no  means 
permit.  You  have  but  to  open  your  Duport 
studies  again.  They  will  catch  you  there  in  a 
trice ;  though,  curiously  enough,  pedantic  old 
Duport  will  have  more  to  relate  about  your 
[  248  ] 


MY   ROD   AND   MY  STAFF 

moments  of  relaxation  than  of  the  stuffy 
mornings  of  toil  in  the  hall  bedroom  giving 
on  the  courtyard  where  old  women  used  to 
beat  carpets  eight  hours  a  day. 

A  novel  entertainment  it  is  indeed  to  hear 
grim,  formal  Griitzmacher  raise  his  head  from 
a  chaos  of  thumb  scales  and  broken  chords 
to  declare 

"  Midnights  of  revel 

And  noondays  of  song  ; 
Is  it  so  wrong  ? 
Go  to  the  devil !  " 

Those  detestable  yellow  pages  make  excellent 
reading,  you  see ;  and  the  print  is  enlivened 
with  pictures.  Here  you  are  on  your  back  be- 
neath the  pines  at  Wannsee,  listening  to  the 
surf  overhead.  There  you  are  enjoying  the 
grotesque  flounderings  of  the  natives  "  beim 
Tennis-spiel."  Or  it  is  January  and  you  are 
skimming  the  steel-blue  ice  out  towards  Pots- 
dam. Then  you  come  back  to  music  with  a 
start.  The  master  has  just  complimented  you 
on  the  purity  of  your  octaves  and  offered  to 
get  you  a  position  in  the  Philharmonic.  But 
[  249  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

you  think  not.  She  has  just  finished  with 
Carreno,  —  your  little  pianist  in  Charlotten- 
burg,  and  has  engaged  passage.  Well,  after 
all,  America  is  good  enough  for  you. 

Would  you,  my  lady,  recapture  the  first 
fine  careless  rapture  of  those  two  youthful 
years  in  Paris  ?  Pray  open  your  musty  de- 
menti and  kneel  again  on  the  lowest  of  those 
" Gradus  ad  Parnassum" —  the  toilsome 
steps  to  that  illusory  Parnassus  which  you 
were  destined  never  quite  to  reach. 

A  gown  floats  before  your  eyes,  blurring 
the  notes,  —  a  ball-gown  with  appoggiaturas 
about  the  sleeves,  arpeggios  down  the  sides, 
a  tremendous  diminuendo  at  the  waist,  and  a 
hold  where  the  neck  should  be.  Turn  the 
well-worn  page  and  there  he  is  (in  the  middle 
of  that  octave  drill)  whirling  you  around  to 
the  strains  of  the  most  ravishing,  most  un- 
Clementi-ish  of  waltzes.  The  next  three  gra- 
duses  appear  to  be  parts  of  a  moving  stair- 
way, —  they  whisk  you  up  towards  Parnassus 
so  fast.  In  one  bewitching  study  old  Clem 
[  250  ] 


MY  ROD   AND   MY   STAFF 

actually  depicts  moonlight,  the  fragrance  of 
spring  flowers,  and  two  under  the  drooping 
branches  of  Fontainebleau  Forest  while  train- 
ing the  hands  to  a  gentle,  legato  movement. 
Abruptly  follows  a  fiendish  discord,  worthy 
of  D'Indy  which  hurls  hero  and  heroine  into 
the  slough  of  despond  in  the  middle  of  page 
twenty-one.  Then  comes  a  passage  much  like 
the  battle  scene  from  Ein  Heldenleben  where 
the  hands  play  in  different  keys.  (Striking 
how Dry-as-dust  has  forestalled  the  moderns!) 
The  next  gradus  was  composed  to  the  text 

"  Tired  with  all  these  for  easeful  death  I  sigh," 

varied  by  flurries  of  staccato  anger.  Sud- 
denly you  are  startled  by  a  shocking  disson- 
ance. Those  five  consecutive,  simultaneous 
notes  will  always  remain  for  you,  however, 
the  most  beautiful  effect  in  music.  Your 
startled  fingers  fell  at  random,  you  know, 
and  played  the  lost  chord  just  at  the  top  of 
page  thirty-nine.  He  took  a  mean  advantage, 
coming  up"  behind  and  popping  his  hands 
[251  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

over  your  eyes!  No,  Clem's  diary-writing 
ends  with  that  chord.  What  follows  is  quite 
meaningless. 

A  quaint  figure  they  cut,  —  these  crabbed 
old  music-masters  in  their  flowered  dressing- 
gowns,  blossoming  out  so  late  in  life  with 
their  wonderful  literary  talents.  Yet  it  surely 
seems  a  beautiful  thing  that  they  who  slaved  so 
faithfully  to  help  us  do  their  more  gifted  bro- 
thers justice  should  have  their  bleached,  rat- 
tling bones  galvanized  into  life  at  the  Elijah- 
like touch  of  association ;  and  that  Romberg 
and  Kreutzer,  Czerny  and  Kummer,  Plaidy 
and  Pleyel  and  Popp  should  march  at  the  last 
in  the  glorious  company  of  inspired,  creative 
artists. 

How  jolly  that  the  faithful,  dusty  old 
chaps  with  the  sedentary  souls  should,  after 
all,  turn  out  to  be  such  potent  poets  of  travel 
that  they  may  snatch  us  at  will  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth. 


XIV 

A  DEFENSE  OF  AMATEUR  WHISTLING 

Whistling  girls  and  crowing  hens  are 
bracketed  together  by  the  wisdom  of  the 
ages,  but  "bad  ends"  are  allotted  these 
ladies,  because  they  have  not  as  yet  learned 
to  perform  in  tune,  not  from  anything  in- 
herently wrong  with  whistling  per  se.  Un- 
fortunately the  proverb  has,  however,  by  a 
fatal  association  of  ideas,  reflected  on  a  noble 
art. 

Because  girls  and  newsboys  pipe  "rag- 
time "  without  regard  to  the  diatonic  scale, 
why  should  my  avocation  be  banned  by  po- 
lite society?  It  would  be  no  more  absurd 
to  consider  singing  outre  because  burly  bari- 
tones persist  in  roaring  "  Wake  not,  but  hear 
me,  Love  !  "  at  morning  concerts ;  or  to  put 
the  piano  down  as  vulgar  because  a  certain 
type  of  person  is  always  whanging  Chaminade 
[  253  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

out  of  season.  (For  my  part,  I  have  never 
discovered  Chaminade's  season ;  but  then 
I  am  only  a  fiddler.)  It  may  be,  though, 
that  polite  society's  aversion  to  the  amateur 
whistle,  proceeds  in  part  from  the  same  lazy 
impulse  that  banned  reading  and  writing  in 
the  Middle  Ages  as  not  quite  the  thing,  — 
as  a  demeaning  business  fit  only  for  clerks, 
scriveners  and  such-like  low  persons.  I  won- 
der how  many  members  of  America's  smart- 
est sets  could,  if  necessary,  whistle  for  the 
cure  of  their  souls  a  single  immortal  melody 
from  the  Schubert  quintet  as  they  stroll 
down  the  Avenue  in  the  cool  of  the  day. 
Perhaps,  however,  it  is  a  mere  sour  grape 
that  has  puckered  up  their  mouths  so  wryly. 
And  everybody  knows  that  it  is  as  hard  to 
whistle  with  a  taste  like  that  in  your  mouth 
as  to  play  the  flute  while  watching  some- 
body bite  into  a  lemon. 

My  avocation  consists  in  whistling  to  my- 
self the  most  beautiful  melodies  in  existence, 
and  I  go  about  in  a  state  of  perpetual  won- 
[254] 


A  DEFENSE  OF  AMATEUR  WHISTLING 

der  that  no  one  else  does  likewise.  Never 
yet  have  I  heard  a  passing  stranger  whistling 
anything  worth  while ;  but  I  have  my  plans 
all  laid  for  the  event.  The  realization  of  that 
whistle  will  come  with  a  shock  like  the  one 
Childe  Roland  felt  when  something  clicked 
in  his  brain,  and  he  had  actually  found  the 
dark  tower.  I  hope  I  shall  not  be 

"  a-dozing  at  the  very  nonce, 
After  a  life  spent  training  for  the  " 

sound,  and  so  lose  my  man  among  the  passers- 
by.  When  I  hear  him  I  shall  chime  in  with 
the  second  violin  or  'cello  part  perhaps,  or, 
if  he  has  stopped,  I  shall  pipe  up  the  answer- 
ing melody.  Of  course  he  will  be  just  as 
much  on  the  alert  as  I  have  been,  and  will 
search  eagerly  for  me  in  the  crowd,  and 
then  we  shall  go  away  together,  and  be 
crony-hearts  forever  after.  I  am  constantly 
constructing  romances,  each  with  this  iden- 
tical beginning,  for  what  could  be  more  ro- 
mantic than  to  find  by  chance  the  only  other 
[  255  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

one  in  all  the  world  who  shared  your  pet 
hobby  ?  But  I  am  ageing  in  the  quest,  and 
sometimes  fear  that  I  may  never  find  my 
stranger,  though  I  attain  the  years  and  the 
technic  of  the  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin. 

The  human  whistle  is  the  most  delightfully 
informal  of  instruments.  It  needs  no  inglo- 
rious lubrication  of  joints  and  greasing  of 
keys  like  its  dearest  relative  the  flute.  It  is 
not  subject  to  the  vocalist's  eternal  cold.  It 
knows  no  inferno  of  tuning  and  snapping 
strings,  nor  does  it  need  resin  for  its  stom- 
ach's sake  and  its  often  infirmities.  Its  only 
approach  to  the  baseness  of  mechanism  is  in 
a  drainage  system  akin  to  that  of  the  French 
horn,  though  far  less  brazen  in  its  publicity. 

I  love  my  whistle  quite  as  much  as  I  love 
my  'cello,  but  in  a  different  way.  They  stand, 
the  one  to  the  other,  very  much  in  the  rela- 
tion of  my  little,  profanely-extra-illustrated 
school  Horace  to  that  magnificent  codex  of 
the  heaven-knows-what-th  century,  the  gem 
of  my  library.  The  former  goes  with  a  black 
[  256  ] 


A  DEFENSE  OF  AMATEUR  WHISTLING 

pipe  and  a  holiday,  with  luncheon  under  a 
bush  by  ra  small  trout  stream ;  the  latter  im- 
plies scholarship,  or  else  visitors  and  Havana 
cigars. 

One  of  the  best  qualities  of  the  whistle  is 
that  it  is  so  portable.  The  whistler  may  not 
even  have  rings  on  his  fingers,  but  he  shall 
have  music  wherever  he  goes  ;  and  to  carry 
about  the  wealth  of  Schubert  and  Beethoven 
and  Chopin  is  more  to  me  than  much  fine 
gold.  Brahms  is  one  of  the  most  whistle-able 
optimists  I  know.  And,  whenever  I  feel  par- 
ticularly down-  and  wish  to  feel  up-in-the- 
mouth,  whistle  and  I  go  a  little  journey  on 
one  of  those  "lone  heaths"  recommended 
by  Hazlitt,  and  there  whistle  all  the  Brahms 
themes  we  can  remember.  We  will  begin 
perhaps  with  concertos,  then  run  through  the 
chamber  music  and  songs  (which  I  prefer 
without  words),  reserving  the  overtures,  suites, 
choral  works,  and  symphonies  for  a  climax. 
The  most  ultramarine  devils  could  hardly  re- 
sist the  contagious  optimism  of  a  Brahms 
[257  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

whistling-bout,  and  I  believe  that  if  Scho- 
penhauer, "  that  prince  of  miserabilists,"  had 
practiced  the  art,  it  would  have  made  him 
over  into  a  Stanley  Hall. 

Whistling  to  keep  up  the  courage  has  passed 
into  a  proverb,  but  the  Solomons  have  said  no- 
thing about  whistling  to  keep  up  the  memory. 
Yet  nothing  is  better  practice  for  the  auto- 
musician  than  the  game  of  "  Whist-le."  A. 
whistles  a  melody.  If  B.  can  identify  it,  he 
wins  the  serve.  If  he  cannot,  A.  scores  one. 
If  the  players  have  large  repertories,  the  field 
should  be  narrowed  down  to  trios,  or  songs, 
or  perhaps  first  movements  of  symphonies. 
I  still  feel  the  beneficent  effects  of  the  time 
when  I  used  to  sit  with  my  chum  in  a  Berlin 
cafe  into  the  small  hours,  racking  my  brain 
and  my  lips  to  find  a  theme  too  recondite  for 
him. 

For  such  purposes  the  whistle  is  exquis- 
itely adapted.  One  often  hears  it  remarked 
that  the  'cello  is  almost  human  ;  but  the 
whistle  is  absolutely  human  and,  unlike  the 
[  258  ] 


A  DEFENSE  OF  AMATEUR  WHISTLING 

'cello,  is  not  too  formal  to  take  along  on  a 
lark.   Though  it  cannot  sing  to  others 

"  Of  infinite  instincts,  —  souls  intense  that  yearn," 

it   will   stick   loyally   and  cheerily  by  you 
through  thick  and  thin,  like 

"  the  comrade  heart 
For  a  moment's  play, 
And  the  comrade  heart 
For  a  heavier  day, 
And  the  comrade  heart 
Forever  and  aye." 

The  whistle  is  one  of  the  surest  tests  of 
musical  genius.  Not  that  the  divine  spark 
lurks  behind  truly  puckered  lips,  but  you  may 
be  sure  that  something  is  amiss  with  that 
composer  whose  themes  cannot  be  whistled  ; 
although,  of  course,  the  converse  will  not 
hold.  He  lacks  that  highest  and  rarest  of 
the  gifts  of  God,  —  melody.  Certain  com- 
posers nowadays,  with  loud  declarations  that 
this  is  the  Age  of  Harmony,  are  trying  to 
slur  over  their  fatal  lack  by  calling  melody  an- 
tiquated, a  thing  akin  to  perukes  and  bustles. 
[  259  ] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

By  changing  the  key  twice  in  the  measure, 
they  involve  us  so  deep  in  harmonic  quick- 
sands as  to  drown,  momentarily,  even  the 
memory  of  Schubert.  If  this  school  prevails 
it  will,  of  course,  annihilate  my  avocation, 
for  I  have  known  but  one  man  who  could 
whistle  harmony,  and  even  he  could  not  soar 
beyond  thirds  and  sixths.  I  shudder  when  I 
imagine  him  attacking  a  D'Indy  tone-poem. 

The  whistle  has  even  wider  possibilities 
than  the  voice.  It  is  quite  as  perfect  and 
natural  an  instrument,  and  generously  ex- 
ceeds the  ordinary  compass  of  the  voice.  It 
can  perform  harder  music  with  more  ease 
and  less  practice.  It  has  another  advantage : 
in  whistling  orchestral  music,  the  "drum- 
traps,"  the  double-bass,  the  bassoon  may  be 
"  cued  in  "  very  realistically  and  with  little 
interruption  by  means  of  snores,  shuffles, 
grunts,  wheezes,  clucks,  et  cetera. 

The  whistle's  chief  glory  is  that  it  is  hu- 
man, yet  single.  Sometimes,  especially  dur- 
ing certain  operas,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
[  260  ] 


A  DEFENSE  OF  AMATEUR  WHISTLING 

■when  Music  was  "  married  to  Immortal 
Verse  "  she  made  a  mesalliance.  The  couple 
seldom  appear  to  advantage  together;  their 
"  winding  bouts  "  are  sad  public  exhibitions 
of  conjugal  infelicity.  Instead  of  cooperat- 
ing, each  misrepresents  and  stunts  the  other's 
nature.  Both  insist  on  talking  at  the  same 
time,  so  that  you  can  understand  neither  one 
plainly,  and,  as  is  generally  the  case,  the  lady 
gets  in  the  first  and  last  word,  and  shouts 
poor  I.  V.  down  between  whiles.  You  would 
scarcely  take  her,  as  she  strides  about  red- 
faced  and  vociferous,  for  the  goddess  to 
whom  you  gave  your  heart  when  she  was  a 
maiden.  But  there,  you  must  remember  that 
I  am  only  a  fiddler  who  likes  his  music 
"  straight." 

The  whistle  has  almost  as  many  different 
qualities  of  tone  as  the  voice,  although  it  is 
so  young  as  to  be  still  in  the  boy-chorister 
stage.  Who  can  predict  the  developments  of 
the  art  after  its  change  of  whistle?  I,  for 
one,  fear  that  it  will  be  introduced  into  the 
[261] 


THE  MUSICAL  AMATEUR 

symphony  orchestra  before  long,  and  this,  I 
am  sure,  will  make  it  vain,  and  destroy  its 
young  naivete,  and  its  delicious  informality. 
It  would  be  like  punching  holes  into  my  dear 
old  black  pipe,  fitting  it  with  a  double  reed, 
and  using  it  in  the  future  works  of  Debussy 
as  a  kind  of  piccolo-oboe.  I  go  about  fur- 
tively looking  at  conductors'  scores  for  fear 
I  may  see  something  like  this  :  — 

Whistle  I 
Whist.    II 
Whist.    Profondo. 

But  with  all  my  heart  I  hope  that  my  avoca- 
tion may  not  be  formalized  until  after  I  have 
hung  up  the  fiddle  and  the  bow  on  the  staff 
of  my  life  as  a  sort  of  double-bar. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .    A 


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